Let Me Haunt
by F Elizabeth
Summary: Let me be your ghost. / After suffering a vicious beating, Kurt and Blaine struggle to cope with the aftermath, both of them wondering why love is such a crime. [On a hiatus currently]
1. Chapter 1

Hello, readers!

I hope this brand-spanking-new story finds you all in good company, considering the newest episode of Glee just finished about an hour ago (for people on the west coast, I think, it just ended)! No spoilers here, but I don't know what to think of it. I liked the Quinn and Artie interaction, but there was the little fact that Blaine sung three songs in the episode that kind of ticked me off. I mean, I know he's a main character and all, but that doesn't really give him a right to sing all the songs.

Okay, that was a major contradiction, because all I write is Klaine. But I'm talking about the actual Glee-verse, so Blaine shouldn't really sing all the songs. So yeah, I just basically contradicted myself. What?

Okay, moving on. Also, did you catch the little 'Dalton' reference in Glee tonight? I sure did. The email Kurt sent to Mr. Schue complaining about Sue was amazing, considering it said Sue was "worse than Tabitha."

And Lord knows everyone knows who Tabitha is. Just thought I'd point that out for those who didn't realize it.

Okay, moving on some more.

This is just going to be a little story that hopefully won't be too long and too intense and too complex (I've already written the first six chapters, so I should know). It's something I picked up from various movies and books about ghosts and such, and I thought it would be a cute little plot for Klaine, although it's not so cute after this chapter. Sorry. If you don't like the separation of Klaine, then don't read.

So yeah. Thanks for putting up with me and all my insane commentary and all my insane Glee stories. It means the world to me to know that I've got people reading what I'm writing down.

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, but if I did, I would put so many 'Dalton' references in each episode, they would be extremely hard to miss and get very annoying after two episodes.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

* * *

** I'm in the background, on the radio,**

**I'm in your car, in your house, waiting at your door, **

**Under your footsteps, I'm everything you know,**

**Just let me haunt, let me haunt,**

**Let me be your ghost**

* * *

"So, what do you say?" Blaine leaned casually against the set of dull lockers, crossing his arms over his chest and turning his head to the side. Overhead, the final bell was blaring and the hallways were filled with students bumping around. The end of the school day had come.

Kurt wrinkled his nose pettily and pushed a book into his open locker. "I don't know. I know it's Friday night and everything, but that doesn't mean we have to go out _every _Friday night."

"That's true," Blaine agreed.

"And we've gone out almost every Friday for a month and a half now," he said and paused to fix a picture of he and a perky brunette with a bow in her hair on the door of his locker. "The first time, it was to Breadstix for dinner and dessert. The second time, it was mini-golfing—"

Blaine smiled at that. "That was fun. You said so yourself."

"Yes, it was fun. I'm merely listing them all," Kurt said. "Anyway, the third time, you took me out on a picnic at night. Now _that _was very enjoyable, not to mention romantic."

"I try," Blaine sighed, satisfied. He picked at the bowtie around his throat to keep his hands busy.

Kurt licked his lips in thought. "The fourth time we went to an Italian restaurant, but that was also the date we got lost," he said and snuck a peek at the other boy from the corner of his eye.

He flushed. "That was because Google Maps was being a bitch."

"Oh, sure. Blame it on the technology," Kurt chuckled, closing his locker door and stepping away from it.

The hallways were near empty, now that school had been released for about five minutes. Only a few stragglers remained and they quickly departed. Kurt started down the hall slowly, letting his bag bump against his side with each step.

"Well, who else would I blame it on?" Blaine caught up with him and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

"Operator error?" Kurt guessed.

Blaine made an impatient, yet teasing sound. "Okay, yeah, whatever. Go on."

"So after we got lost on the way to Bella Nolte, our fifth date was spent shopping." Kurt paused and looked over at him, delighted. "That was my favorite, by far. I don't know about you…"

"I think I preferred getting lost on the way to a restaurant at night," he replied briskly and bumped Kurt's shoulder gently. "You know shopping is not my forte—"

"Which is incredulous, since you wear such nice outfits," Kurt interrupted and adjusted the other boy's collars.

"—and I didn't particularly enjoy trying on heaps of clothes. Especially the green skinny jeans." Blaine gave a shudder.

Kurt looked at him. "But I thought the green ones were very slimming."

"But they were way too expensive, more than any pair of jeans I'd ever owned," Blaine said as they turned the corner. At the end of the hall were the doors that led to the parking lot; sun beamed through the glass and cast golden rays across the floor. "Plus, I couldn't find a shirt to wear them with."

"I'm sure there would've been something, had we kept looking," Kurt mused. "But no, you wanted to leave after a couple hours."

Blaine sighed, a smile teasing his lips. "That was because if we didn't leave when we had, you would've bought out the entire store, and I don't know if my car would've been able to fit all of that."

"Just rent an SUV when we go shopping, then," he suggested happily. "Your little Toyota is pretty small. I can barely fit in the passenger seat."

Blaine reached forward to push open the door, and he held it open as both boys walked out. "Don't be mean. I've had this car since last year, and I saved it from the scrap shop."

Kurt chuckled and covered his hand. "Blaine Anderson: Saving tiny old clunkers, one clown car at a time."

"So it's rusty," he said, uneasy, "that doesn't mean it's bad. At least I have a car to drive in the first place."

"I guess…" Kurt said. As they headed down the stone steps, he linked their arms together.

Blaine pulled him close, reveling in the boy's warm touch. He sighed contentedly before replying, "And I don't care if it's small. If I'm short enough to fit in the driver's seat, I think it's okay."

"But it's not okay when your most frequent passenger is two and a half inches taller than you and he has to lower the seat, and even then, his head still almost brushes the ceiling," he said. He rummaged through his bag for a pair of keys.

"Then we'll drive your car."

"That means I get control over the radio."

"Drat."

Kurt smiled charmingly and fished out his pair of keys. He jingled them in one hand and the sun glinted off the metallic surfaces. "I win."

"So, are we going?" Blaine asked as they walked in the direction of a cherry red truck that sat under the shade of a large oak tree. He traced a circle in the ground with the toe of his shoe.

"Out tonight? Maybe. It depends on where we're going," Kurt said uneasily and fitted the key into the driver's side lock.

Blaine bit his lip. His mind ran. "We can go to the movies? I hear 'Titanic' is out in 3D now."

Kurt snorted and popped open the door. He leaned over the seat and plopped his bag down on the passenger side. "Titanic'? Is that all that's out?"

"Please? You know I've been dying to see it since it came out," he said, drawing out his words. "And I happen to know for a fact that you absolutely _bawled _the last time we watched 'Titanic' in 2D. Imagine how much you're going to cry when the three-dimensional ship hits the three-dimensional iceberg."

"I didn't cry_ that_ much." He bristled, but smiled. "And we're not going."

Blaine dropped his smile. He reached out and grabbed Kurt by the elbows, pulling him towards him. "If we go tonight, I'll buy you Junior Mints."

"You always buy me Junior Mints when we go to the movies," Kurt pointed out.

"Then I'll buy you two boxes."

Kurt narrowed his eyes and titled his head to the side. "Tempting, but no."

"I'll pay for the tickets, and I'll pick you up," he went on. His fingers played with the cuff at the end of one of Kurt's sleeves, his fingertips brushing warm skin.

"And you always pay for the tickets and drive me around." Kurt broke out smiling.

Blaine licked his lips and he met Kurt's eyes. "Then I will let you coordinate every single future date from now on."

This seemed to interest him and it flashed across his eyes. "So if I want to… say, dine by a peaceful lake with candles that smell like roses and enough cuisine to put a French restaurant to shame every weekend for the rest of our lives, you would let me?"

"To a certain extent, yes," Blaine said with a smile. He twined their fingers together, Kurt's slim ones folding with his own. He saw the delight light up Kurt's face and he turned his head to chuckle. "But don't go overboard with it. I'd rather not carry a picnic basket that weighs more than you."

"Is that supposed to be an insult?" Kurt raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow.

He smiled at Kurt's sudden self-consciousness. He pulled the boy just a little bit closer. "Not at all. You're actually quite thin. I'm only saying that that would be a whole lot of food, and I don't think either of us could eat it all."

The corner of Kurt's lips perked. "Well, then I guess you're off the hook. But just for making me go into a near heart attack, you're buying me a box of Twizzlers along with the Junior Mints."

"I'd buy you all the candy in the world," Blaine said happily and he leaned forward to lightly peck Kurt on the lips. The moment their lips touched, he did not want to break apart. He wanted to wrap his arms around Kurt and hold him tightly; he could hardly imagine the thought of letting him go.

But Kurt was the one who stepped back, laughing. "Save it for later, Cupid," he said playfully. "I'll see you at… seven, maybe?"

Blaine nodded and stepped back to allow Kurt to climb into his truck. "Seven it is. And I'll pick you up."

"You always pick me up," Kurt said, starting the car and rolling down the window. He leaned his arm against the door and craned his head out the open window. "When can I pick you up for a change?"

"When I decide to stop loving you. Which will be never," he said delightedly, rocking back and forth on his heels.

Kurt rolled his eyes. "Oh, the cheesy romantic. Never change."

"I don't plan on it. I'll see you tonight." He moved closer to the car and, taking Kurt's free hand, pressed his lips to the back of it. He could feel Kurt's skin heat under his lips, and he stepped back to let Kurt pull out of the space. The cherry red truck looped around the parking lot before heading out on the main road and disappearing.

Sighing contentedly, Blaine couldn't keep the smile from his face. He wandered across the lot to where his tiny Toyota was parked and jammed the keys into the lock. He slid into the car and he cranked the engine, which took more than a few tries. It sputtered to life and he was able to back out without it dying on him.

The car had been his mother's when she was young, and she had intended for it to go to the junk yard, but Blaine had talked her out of it; she ended up letting him have the hunk of metal, and she bought herself a new car, one that ended up being suitable for the move.

Transferring from the Dalton Academy for Boys to William McKinley High School was a hike. A two hour hike, to be specific. When Blaine had brought up his decision to change schools, his mother had not been completely on par with him.

"What about all your friends? Surely you'll miss them?" she had asked while scrubbing circles across the surface of a ceramic plate.

"I will," he answered, "but I think I really want to transfer. It's not that there are problems with the friends I have right now, or the classes I'm taking, but—"

She smiled tenderly. "It's Kurt, isn't it?"

Blaine paused for a long while before replying. "Yeah, it is. You understand, don't you? He's two hours away from me, and I worry about him a lot. He had trouble with bullies last year and I want to be where he is. I want to protect him, to make sure he's okay. And I sure can't do that from two hours away."

"I see where you're coming from. I'm not saying no. I'm saying I think about it," she told him and set down the plate.

"But…" Blaine continued on.

"But what?"

He looked up at her. "There's always a 'but' to everything."

"But we'll have to see if there are any schools we can get Sadie into," she sighed. Then she perked. "I don't think you'd mind if you and your sister shared McKinley…?"

At that moment, Sadie Anderson, resident older sister—by a good six months, and as a result, she had jumped the cutoff date for school and it made her a senior—strolled into the kitchen, chewing on a wad of gum.

"Wait, what? All I heard was that Blaine was transferring schools because he misses having the opportunity to suck face with his boyfriend all the time, and so you're going to let him? And that we're moving," she rambled on, leaning against the counter. "Where does that put me? You know Chamberlin's going to miss me."

The Chamberlin Institute for Ladies was one of the top girls' schools in Ohio and it also happened to be in close proximity of Dalton. It was another boarding school, where Sadie was the center of attention and the star of the volleyball squad.

"Oh, honey, you'll be fine," their mother said gently. "You'll have to get used to going to a public school, though."

Sadie dropped her mouth in shock and Blaine could see the bright pink gum in her mouth. She blanched, looking ready to faint.

"I'll think about it," their mother said firmly, and went back to scrubbing dishes.

Now, Blaine focused on the road ahead of him. He slowed to a stop at a light and drummed his fingers against the wheel. He studied the scenery around him, from the general stores to the street signs to the unmistakably tall oak trees that seemed to dot each corner. Getting used to the new surroundings had taken time.

At first, he had had Kurt drive around the city with him, to get him accustomed to the sights. The first time, he had almost gotten lost getting out of the neighborhood where the new house was.

But thankfully, he wasn't as bad as Sadie, who had gotten confused pulling out of the _garage, _just because it wasn't like the one back in Westerville. She wasn't a blonde by any means, but Blaine had an idea that she was really wearing a dark wig over some platinum locks.

Blaine started forward, seeing the green light flash, and slowly the stores and shops faded into the suburbs. He took each turn carefully, reciting each street name aloud as he turned. Though it was silly, it helped him remember where he was going.

All the houses on his street were almost identical. They were all made from the same red brick, the roofs sloped in the same fashion. The emerald green lawns were trimmed the same, the hedges clipped. It took everything he could to wait seven houses before pulling into a driveway.

Throwing the car into park, Blaine sat in the car for another moment. He leaned his head back against the headrest and hummed along with the song on the radio. Mentally, he went over the plan for later that night, and he smiled.

* * *

"Ding dong," Blaine caroled when the front door of the Hummel-Hudson house swung open.

Finn Hudson stared blankly back at him, eyes narrowing slightly. Blaine must've looked equally shocked because Finn said, "Thanks, dude, but roses aren't really my kind of flower."

Blaine looked dumbly down at the flowers in his hands, the ones that were carefully wrapped in cellophane and crinkled in his hands with every move. There were six roses, all a rich yellow with red flecking the tips of the petals. He looked back up at Finn.

"And you're going to have to remember that _I _live here, too. So it might not always be Kurt who opens the door," Finn went on and held the door open.

Blaine rubbed the back of his neck, flustered. "Right."

"Anyway, come in. I'm sure Kurt's almost done getting… dressed, or whatever he's been doing for the last, like, hour." He stood back, keeping the door open, and Blaine slowly walked in.

The front room of the house was grand. The ceiling was abnormally high, with a grandfather clock standing to the left, a long glass dining table with a set of chairs to the right. Looking straight ahead, Blaine could see the living room, and the lights from the television that flashed across Burt Hummel's face; Burt was stretched out on the sofa, watching a sports game.

Blaine blinked when Finn walked past him, clearly not knowing what to do with his brother's boyfriend. As he passed the staircase, he called out, "Hey, Kurt! Blaine's here!"

Almost immediately there was squeaky, "Okay! I'll be down in a minute!"

Blaine smiled slightly at the sound of the other boy's voice and he didn't realize that Carole Hudson had materialized out of the kitchen and was heading toward him. The clack of her shoes against the hardwood made him aware.

"Hello, Blaine. It's nice to see you tonight," she said warmly. She eyed the flowers in his hands and pointed at them with a manicured nail. "We'll probably want to get those in some water, won't we? They're lovely."

He nodded dumbly and handed over the flowers. Licking his lips, he followed Carole into kitchen and watched her fish for a glass vase in one of the cabinets. She filled it halfway and then delicately placed the roses in. She lifted the vase in the air with a sense of awe.

"These are beautiful, Blaine. I'm sure Kurt will just love them," she said and set them on the counter.

Blaine looked at the roses now. In the light, the yellow was richer, more golden. The tips seemed to be a brighter red, almost as vibrant as the color of blood, the color spattered across the petals. It reminded him of in _Alice in Wonderland, _the animated version, when Alice had to paint all the white roses red.

Past the roses, he saw the flash of commercials on the television. Burt was propped on the sofa in front of it, sipping something from a glass. He finally leaning forward, he placed the glass on a coaster on the table and looked over his shoulder.

"Good to see you, Blaine," Burt said appreciatively.

"It's nice to see you, too, sir," Blaine responded automatically.

He waved his hand at him. "Well, don't just stand there. Come sit down. Kurt's gonna be another fifteen minutes, at best."

Blaine chuckled under his breath and left the kitchen, going to the living room. He carefully sat down in one of the armchairs and folded his hands over his knees.

"So, what's gonna happen tonight?" Burt asked right off. His eyes weren't even on Blaine, and somehow that made him ten times as anxious.

He should be used to this question by now. It was the same one Burt asked every Friday when Blaine came to pick Kurt up. He always asked it in the same tone, and while occupied with something, whether it be sports on television or the newspaper.

"Movies," Blaine replied shortly. "We're going to the movies. Maybe catch dinner afterward. Regular date night."

Burt hummed at the answer, bobbing his head. "You know the curfew."

"Right. Midnight," he said. "We'll be back by then, or even before."

"Glad to hear it."

That was that.

Blaine had just leaned back in his arm chair, finally becoming somewhat comfortable, when the clunk of shoes sounded like gunfire down the staircase. Both Blaine and Carole perked and looked toward the staircase; Burt's gaze stayed locked on the screen, and that told Blaine that he had been around Kurt long enough to be accustomed to the running up and down the stairs.

"Sorry… I'm ready!" Kurt panted at the base of the staircase. He rested his hand against the banister and his chest rose and fell with deep breaths. He shifted his hair out of his eyes. "Hey," he said to Blaine breathlessly.

But Blaine was more attuned to what Kurt was wearing: a dark pair of jeans that hugged his impossibly thin legs, a blindingly white shirt that read "Paris" in bold black lettering, and a soft jacket over it. On his feet, he wore bright white shoes.

"Hi," Blaine choked out, snapping from his reverie. Slowly he stood up from the chair. "You look great."

"I could say the same to you," Kurt said, walking into the living room. He brushed his fingertips over Blaine's shoulder, feeling the leather of the jacket. "Nice leather."

Blaine thought he felt the heat from the boy's hand rush through the thick layer of the jacket. He chewed the inside of his lip and nodded, at loss for words.

Thankfully, Carole leaned over the counter and said, "Kurt, come here. Look at the beautiful flowers Blaine brought you."

Blaine felt heat rushing over his face in embarrassment, but he was grateful for her saying something to grab Kurt's attention. Kurt turned and spotted the roses on the counter, then narrowed his eyes at Blaine.

"You didn't need to get me flowers," he said lightly and drifted over to the counter. He gently ran his fingers over one of the petals.

"I wanted to," Blaine replied. He strolled out of the living room and joined Kurt at the counter. "Plus, they're, um, the kind that you got me when I got the part of Tony for the musical."

Kurt smiled brightly. "They are, aren't they? They're beautiful. Thank you," he said, and turned his blue eyes on him.

Blaine imagined the room filling up with water, drowning him, and his chest tightened. He wanted to look straight into the murky eyes and he also wanted to look away because they made him lightheaded and constricted.

Then, a grunt from the sofa. "Shouldn't you boys be on your way? What time does the movie start?"

Kurt looked over at his father. "Right. We should probably get going."

"Yeah," Blaine said dumbly. He fingered the keys in the pocket of his jacket. He stepped away. "After you."

"Always the gentleman," Kurt sighed and placed a hand against his chest. His smooth lips turned into a smile and he cast a look at Carole over the counter. "We'll be home around midnight, like always."

Carole nodded. "Be safe, you two. And have fun. Tell me all about it when you get home."

"I will," Kurt promised as he made his way to the front room, Blaine trailing on his heels. "Dad, I'm leaving. I'll see you later tonight."

The volume on the television lowered. "Be safe," Burt echoed.

"We will," Blaine responded this time. This earned a grin from Kurt as he zipped up his jacket.

"'Bye, Finn! Blaine and I are leaving!" Kurt called loudly to nowhere in particular. His voice echoed against the walls and the ceiling and they waited

Then, nearly ten seconds later, "Okay, bye!"

"He seems distracted," Blaine murmured and twirled his keys between his fingers.

Kurt shrugged a shoulder, opening the door and letting in the cool night air. "It's Finn. He's probably sitting in front of his game console like he does every Friday night. I just don't know why he doesn't want to double date with us. I'm sure Rachel would want to."

"Maybe Rachel's always busy on Friday nights," Blaine suggested, closing the front door behind them, "and he doesn't want to come with us anyway because he knows we're going to kiss at least once and he can't handle his brother growing up."

Kurt jabbed him jokingly in the ribs. "Funny. And I happen to know that Rachel is free, and has been free, every Friday night since sophomore year," he said. He caught the stare from Blaine. "I know. She needs to get out more."

Blaine nodded and paced down the winding sidewalk to the street. He clicked his keys once and the headlights of his Toyota flashed twice. Reaching forward before Kurt could, he opened the passenger door. Kurt rolled his eyes and slid in, Blaine shutting the door after he was inside.

Clouds were under Blaine's feet as he paced around the car, and a certain lightness swelled in his chest. He pulled open the driver's door and got in, cranking the engine. It took three times for the engine to sputter to life and Kurt tried to hide his chuckle of amusement.

"Just because you have a fully functional car doesn't mean you should hate on mine," Blaine remarked. He pulled away from them curb and started down the street, headlights illuminating the other houses and trees for a brief moment.

"I'm not hating on it. I'm simply laughing at it. There's a difference," Kurt told him and leaned back, folding his hands in his lap.

Blaine smiled. "I'll bet there is. So, what will it be tonight? The movie, I mean."

"We could always see 'The Hunger Games' again," Kurt instantly answered and he visibly perked in his seat. "You know I wouldn't mind seeing that again."

"Of course. I should have guessed."

The night that particular film premiered, Blaine had taken Kurt to the local theater and they had been two of the first fifty people in line. They had waited in an endless line for what seemed like years, but was only five and a half hours, according to Kurt's phone. Blaine had ended up falling asleep at the last five minutes of the film and Kurt had hit him until he woke up.

"You should have. But can we see it again? Please?" Kurt asked. He folded his hands in a prayer-like position.

Blaine chuckled and turned the corner. As soon as he did, the lights from Lima's shopping center lit up the sky. It was the only shopping center within the city that included both a movie theater and three decent restaurants, along with a smattering of small stores.

"Obviously. It's your choice," Blaine said, pulling into the parking lot. "Besides, I don't think there are any other good movies out right now besides the one with Julia Roberts in it and 'Titanic.'"

"That is true." Kurt, at the mere mention of the movie, was bouncing in his seat. He quickly clicked the button on his seat belt and sprung out of the car before Blaine had even pulled the key from the ignition.

"Someone's eager," Blaine said, amused, and got out of the car.

Kurt beamed until it looked like it hurt. "Of course I am! We get to see 'The Hunger Games' again!"

"You know, you were never this excited when I took you to see 'Breaking Dawn, Part One,'" Blaine mentioned. He stuffed the keys in the pocket of his worn jacket and joined Kurt at the front of the car.

He snorted. "That's because 'Breaking Dawn' was cheesy. Sure, the book was already awful, but the movie was worse. There are some things that need not be made into films, and there are some things that are basically written for the big screen."

"Like 'The Hunger Games'?"

"Exactly." Kurt let out a short laugh and he covered his mouth as they crossed the dark parking lot, led by the golden beams of street lamps. "And besides, does 'Breaking Dawn' have a hunky blonde?"

Blaine grinned. "Well, there's that doctor…"

Kurt hit his shoulder. "Don't be sarcastic. You're the one who read all the books. And you're the one who actually begged me to go to watch all the movies with you, then see 'Breaking Dawn.' I think you should know his name."

"I know, I'm kidding. And Carlisle is a hunk. So the Twilight series does have a blonde hunk," Blaine said triumphantly. "And who were you talking about? That bread boy you pine over?"

Flushing, Kurt rolled his eyes. "His name is Peeta, and he's flawless. Absolutely flawless."

"You know, Carlisle is flawless, too. He's a vampire."

Kurt hit his shoulder again. "Oh, hush. Vampires aren't so great."

"They're basically supermodels that can live forever. What's not so great about that?" Blaine asked. He pulled out his wallet as they tagged onto the end of the line to the ticket booth.

"Well, for one," Kurt started, lowering his voice as they advanced in the line, "you live forever. It's not a very good thing if you live forever. I mean, don't get me wrong, I would love to see what the world would be like in two hundred years, but it would get boring."

Blaine pursed his lips and fiddled with the zipper of his wallet. "I guess. But what's so great about a dystopian society?"

"It's just a plot!"

"Just like sparkling vampires and hunky werewolves!"

Kurt glared hotly at him, rolling his eyes.

Eventually they reached the head of the line and Blaine slid two bills across the counter. The boy behind the glass handed them two tickets, looking bored. As they walked inside, the warm aroma of popcorn washed over them and Kurt sighed.

"We're sharing popcorn, right?" he asked as he handed his ticket to the man tearing off stubs.

"Of course," Blaine said and stuffed his stub in his pocket. He resisted wrapping his arm around the other boy's waist and instead jammed his hands in his pockets. "So, popcorn, Junior Mints, and Twizzlers?"

Kurt grinned a little. He licked his lips as they approached the food counter. They ordered a box to share, along with Kurt's candy. When Blaine pulled out his wallet to pay, Kurt grabbed his wrist.

"Let me pay. Please," he said and his eyes glittered pleadingly.

Blaine stared at him. "Oh, come on. It's part of the deal. I pick you up, I buy the tickets, I buy the food. When it's your turn to do everything, you can pay for it." He pulled his hand free and handed the girl behind the counter the money.

Kurt flushed and rolled his eyes again. If he kept it up throughout the night, they would be permanently rolled back in his head.

With the food in tow, they headed toward the theater and slipped inside, cloaking themselves in darkness and movie previews.

* * *

"Kurt, are you—"

"Shush!"

"Oh, come on. It's only the credits—"

"I said, shush!"

Blaine fell back in his seat, defeated. He rested his chin in his hands and watched as the endless credits crawled up the black screen. The lights above were beginning to fade back on and Blaine's eyes adjusted.

The entire movie, Kurt had not said a peep. He cried when appropriate—which was mostly the entire movie, Blaine thought—and he sat on the edge of his seat the majority of the time. He occasionally slumped in his seat and hid his face in Blaine's shoulder when he knew, _just knew, _someone was going to get a spear through the chest.

Now that the credits were nearly finished, Blaine sat up and shrugged on his jacket. He placed his hands on his knees and waited for Kurt to finally tear his eyes away from the screen.

"I am satisfied," Kurt declared and popped to his feet once the screen had gone black. He wore a delighted smile across his face and held his hand out to Blaine to help him out of his seat.

"You look satisfied," Blaine commented, their trash in one hand. He gave Kurt's hand a slow squeeze and they headed down the stairs on the side of the room, the theater around them bare and silent.

With a spring in his step, he followed Blaine down the stairs and down a long hall that led to the lobby. He blinked when he was faced with the bright light. "Of course. It's 'The Hunger Games.'"

"You know, you never showed this much enthusiasm when we saw 'Breaking Dawn'…" Blaine drawled, dumping their trash in a garbage can on the way out. Before anyone could see, he pressed a kiss against his cheek.

"That's because it's a very unrealistic movie about vampires," Kurt said plainly. He felt a blush creep onto his cheeks and ducked his head.

"Well, 'The Hunger Games' is an unrealistic movie about kids who are forced to kill each other." Blaine gave a shrug. "But whatever floats your boat."

Kurt glared at him. "'The Hunger Games' is a work of _art_, Blaine. A masterpiece. Perfection." He sighed. "Speaking of perfection, did you see Peeta? Oh, he's just amazing."

"So you obsess over a fictional character instead of your own boyfriend?" Blaine said teasingly, bumping his shoulder as they walked through the lobby. He held Kurt's hand tightly, even though he could feel the stares from the other moviegoers around them.

Nodding happily, Kurt smiled. "Of course. But when they finally make 'Mockingjay' into a movie, I'll accept the fact that Katniss loves Peeta and they'll be together for the rest of time. _Then_ I'll go back to obsessing over you."

Blaine rolled his eyes.

Together, they left the theater, stepping outside. The sky was a blanket of velvet, dotted with the bright spots of stars. The air was somewhat cool for early April, and Kurt zipped up his jacket.

Outside, the streetlamps cast golden glows on the plaza, illuminating the cobblestone streets. People idled on the sidewalks in small groups, laughing and talking. By the rows of benches, a posse of burly-looking boys talked, and as Kurt and Blaine passed them, their conversation dropped.

The hairs on the back of Blaine's neck stood on end. He felt his muscles grow stiff, almost numb, and heard the boys whisper under their breaths. He kept his eyes forward, not daring to look back at them. The last thing they needed were jocks barking at them.

"Where do you, um, want to go?" Blaine asked when he thought Kurt was going to look over at them. "We can always go somewhere to eat, or just… Anything."

Kurt nodded his head as they followed the sidewalk, slowly growing farther from the theater. "Food would be nice." He looked over at Blaine. "Pizza?"

"Pizza would be great," Blaine said. "Isn't there a restaurant over here?"

There was more than one restaurant in the plaza. There were many, and they dotted the center in a string. From where they were, Blaine could make out an Italian eatery, a Mexican cantina, and a bar and grill. There were sure to be more.

Then, when the theater was behind them, a gruff voice called out, "Hey, fags. Where're you going?"

Blaine felt Kurt's hand tighten, heard his breath hitch in his throat. Kurt licked his lips.

"Don't turn around," Blaine muttered.

"I said," another voice yelled again, only closer, louder, words melting together, "where are you homos going? Isn't it past your bedtime?"

Kurt ducked his head, low enough that Blaine could hear him whisper. "What do you want to do? Just leave, or…?"

"Ignore them," Blaine advised firmly. "They'll get tired of us and leave, hopefully."

But the clapping of tennis shoes against cobblestone pavement made Blaine's heart jump into his throat. The sound was like thunder, numerous and loud and suddenly behind them.

Blaine dismissed the idea of never looking behind him and turned his head. Behind them, the group of jocks from the theater plaza were dashing towards them in a lazy manner; they looked almost drunk and they were shouting, but their words were slurred.

The sight made Blaine suddenly jolt to the left, dragging Kurt down a narrow alley that was between the theater and another store. Kurt's hand tightened around his to keep a hold on him as they hurried, the golden lamplight disappearing behind them.

The sound of tennis shoes followed, and the yelling was louder, louder.

"Fags, slow down! We can't keep up!" one of them called. This elicited a roar of laughter from the others.

Once they had reached the end of the alley, Blaine skidded to a halt. It wasn't a dead end, and it opened up to the empty back parking lot, which was littered with pieces of trash. A Dumpster stood behind the theater, a lone street lamp looming over it.

Blaine was snapped out of his reverie when he felt Kurt yanking at his hand, getting him to move. He followed easily and they raced across the parking lot, careful to avoid the dips in the street, the small potholes.

Daring to look over his shoulder, he saw the group of boys were quickly gaining, their long strides bringing them closer with every passing second. He swallowed over the lump in his throat and turned back around when a crevice in the road snagged his ankle, pulling him down onto the concrete. Pain shot up his leg and he let out a gasp.

"Blaine!" Kurt yelped and came to an abrupt stop, skidding against the concrete. He fell onto his hands and knees trying to turn back, and he hurried to the other boy's side.

"Kurt, get out of here," Blaine ordered and pushed himself to his knees. He tried to scramble to his feet again, but his ankle screamed in protest, like it had been hit repeatedly with a hammer, shattering the bone.

Not complying, Kurt stayed where he was. He pulled on Blaine's arm, trying to help him. "No, I'm not leaving you here. If they're going to hurt us, I don't want you to be the only one to suffer."

Before Blaine could reply, distorted shadows loomed over them. His blood ran cold and he refused to look up at them, but Kurt did, his eyes hard and welling with tears.

"Hey, fags," one of the boys sneered down at them. He was tall, with the broad shoulders of an athlete, and a ball cap was twisted sideways on his head. His blue letterman jacket reeked of alcohol. "Whatcha up to tonight?"

"We went to see 'The Hunger Games,'" Blaine answered, trying to keep his voice even. Even with the pain in his ankle, he curled his legs under him, Indian style, and folded his hands in his lap. Kurt stiffly did the same.

Another boy—there were five that surrounded them—leaned forward and crossed his arms over his chest. "That's such a stupid movie," he spat. "But lemme guess—you two weren't watching the movie, right? Too busy sucking face?"

"So what if we were?" Blaine said, though he hadn't touched Kurt's lips once the entire film.

The first boy gave a lazy snort. "What makes you think it's alright to do that? Especially in public?" he asked.

To Blaine's surprise, Kurt cleared his throat. "First off, 'The Hunger Games' is a very dramatic and thrilling book," he started off, taking a deep breath, "and you should probably read it before you make any assumptions about the movie. Oh, wait. You don't read, do you? You're probably too busy throwing nerds into Dumpsters and tossing passes at football practice."

A third boy smacked Kurt in the back of the head with his hand, and Kurt glared up at him. Blaine did everything he could to keep his hands folded in his lap, to not say a word. But his eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched.

"And _secondly_," Kurt went on before the boy who had hit him could remark, "this is our date night. And what better way to spend a date night then by going to see a movie? I'm sure you all like to do that with your girlfriends, don't you?"

"Shut up!" the third boy said and whacked Kurt again in the head, but this time, Kurt cradled his head. The boy had swung at him with something blunt, something heavy and thick and metal. The butt of a knife.

"Why should we?" Blaine demanded suddenly, his voice unwavering. He rose to his feet, which took a great amount of effort, and he ignored the pain shooting up and down his leg. He turned and stared at the first boy, the athlete.

The athlete struck him in the face with something sharp, another knife, and sent Blaine reeling back a step. His face burned with the open cut and he pressed his hand against it; when he pulled it back, his palm was smeared with crimson.

"That oughta teach you fags," the second boy growled, a grim smile on his lips. He pushed Blaine back, a blow to the shoulder, and Blaine stumbled out of the circle. He landed on his back on the concrete.

"Blaine!" Kurt cried and started to get up.

The third boy grabbed him by the back of his jacket and threw him forward. He landed on his stomach at the feet of the first two boys, scraping one side of his face against the rough pavement.

"Kurt, get out of here!" Blaine roared as he pushed himself into a sitting position. The gash on his cheek was dripping blood and it stained his white t-shirt. His eyes were washed out, bleak. Desperate.

The athlete hurried over to him and yanked him to his feet by the front of his shirt, holding the knife blade right at the base of his throat. Kurt made a squeak, and the third boy immediately made a grab for him, twisting his arms behind his back and holding him still.

"Both of you, be quiet!" the second boy commanded in a husky voice. "I don't wanna hear you talk anymore, got it?"

"Shut up!" Kurt screamed back at him. In the arms of the second boy, he kicked and flailed and writhed, fighting. He watched the athlete lift the knife. "Don't! Don't hurt Blaine! If you're going to hurt one of us, hurt me."

"Kurt," Blaine choked out. "Be quiet, okay?"

The boy restraining Kurt chuckled. "You should listen to your boyfriend. He's got the right idea here."

"No! Let us both go! Now!" Kurt said again. He fought relentlessly against his captor, his eyes squeezed shut. The boy holding him wrestled the knife back into his hands and drove the blunt end into the back of Kurt's head.

With his head pounding, Kurt dropped to the ground. Then, the knife was plunged into his shoulder and he let out a bloodcurdling wail that made Blaine wince.

Blaine bit his lip to the point where it started to bleed like the gash on his face, and he remained silent. He knew that if he spoke out or tried to stop them, they would hurt them more.

The athlete growled and yanked Blaine toward him. Throwing an arm around Blaine's throat, he raised the knife. The edge of the blade was placed carefully against Blaine's Adam's apple.

"This oughta teach you homos that you don't deserve to live," the boy growled.

Then, the swipe of the blade, and Blaine sunk to his knees, to the ground.

A scream echoed in Kurt's ears, his scream and Blaine's, as well. It shattered his mind, his ears, his heart. The pain in his shoulder was deep and he could feel his blood soaking through the back of his shirt, but it was numb to him now.

Now, there was no pain. None at all.

Tears blurred his vision. The figure before him lay lifelessly on the ground, red pooling around it, under his head, beneath his chest. Kurt let a sob wrack his shoulders, and then the sound of tennis shoes against concrete made him look up.

"C'mon, guys, let's get outta here," one of them commanded hastily.

Kurt snapped his head over his shoulder to see the five boys fleeing, running away, disappearing down the alley they had come down earlier. After a second, they were gone.

Gasping, Kurt scrambled forward, not minding the scrapes on the heels of his hands and on his knees, and he struggled to pull Blaine into his arms, grasping at the boy's leather jacket. Blaine was heavy, his body limp, and red stained the front of his shirt.

The sight that stopped Kurt was the nasty, thick line of red that tore across the base of his throat. It looked almost unreal, like something from a horror movie, leaking and dripping and slick.

It made Kurt choke on his sobs, tears falling down his cheeks in glittery trails. He hugged the boy to his chest, whispering under his breath, feeling the beat of his pulse slow gradually. He did not mind that his hands grew slick and wet and warm.

"Don't leave me, Blaine," Kurt hissed and laid the boy's head in his lap. Even now, in the golden light, with blood smeared across his face and trailing down his chest, he looked like an angel. A sad angel.

Over his shoulder, Kurt yelled. He yelled until his throat was raw and he couldn't yell anymore. He screamed for someone to help him, for someone to call the police, for someone to do something. He screamed for what felt like hours.

Turning back to Blaine, the yells drowned out by his sobs, he stroked the boy's forehead. He brushed dark curls to the side, and he found his hand shaking tremendously. There was no way to stop the tears from flowing, and they trailed down his cheeks, hot and burning.

"Please, don't leave me, Blaine," he whispered again, pressing his shaking lips to the boy's forehead. He could feel Blaine's shallow breaths growing less frequent and he cried.

"I'm not… going to leave," Blaine choked out and his voice was raspy, pained. His eyes remained shut and he licked his lips, which were slick with blood. "I'll never… leave you, Kurt."

Kurt clutched his closer and sobbed until his chest ached from the pain, until he had no air left in his lungs.

The metallic smell of blood loitered in the air. It was all silent, except for the muffled bustling of people on the other side of the theater. All those people… They did not know what was happening. There was no way for them to know that two boys were brutally attacked, and that one lay dying.

"You're not going to die on me. I won't let you," Kurt said adamantly through tears. He cupped Blaine's face and ran his fingers over the boy's smooth skin. Even now, soaked with red, it was still the color of porcelain, only a few shades darker, but just as smooth. "I love you, Blaine. I love you. I'll always love you, no matter what happens."

Then, the sounds of sirens made him snap his head up. His heart was pounding so forcefully in his chest that it made him flinch each time. Someone must have called the police, and now they were coming to save them.

It was then that Kurt noticed the posse of girls standing there, hugging the back of the theater, staring at Kurt. They carried small purses and wore short skirts, and though they were pegged as the populars, the confident ones, they cowered.

Beside them stood a few men who whispered to each other with their heads down. One of them must have called the police.

The sirens were getting louder by the passing moment and the blue and red lights streaked across buildings.

Someone was coming to help.

* * *

Blaine felt air enter his chest and his eyes shot open. He gasped for a moment, sucking air into his lungs. Blinking, he did not stare at the sky, like he had expected. Wasn't he lying on his back? Shouldn't he be seeing stars?

Instead, he was standing on his feet.

In front of him lay a scene drenched in red and golden light. The buildings of the shopping center were doused in flashing red and blue lights as ambulances neared, and a small crowd had formed at the back of what looked like the theater.

He saw a group of girls whispering, and a clump of men who were doing the same; they stood off to the side. Blaine stared at them, bewildered. What were they all doing here? Why were they whispering? What was going on?

Then he remembered and his breath hitched. When he breathed in sharply, he expected to feel a great pain stabbing his lungs, and a burning at his throat. But he felt nothing.

Reaching his hand up to his throat, he ran his fingers across the hollow. There was nothing slick. No cuts, no wounds, no scrapes. He looked down at himself.

His jeans were neatly pressed and clean and smelled faintly like the detergent his mom used to wash clothes. His white shirt was unstained, no red anywhere, and his jacket was smooth with the usual spray he used to keep it in good shape, not smooth with blood.

Blaine rubbed his face and peered out through his splayed fingers. He remembered everything: from the five boys who had jumped him, to the cut in his face, to the slash in his throat, to seeing Kurt knocked repeatedly to the ground.

What in the world was going on?

His heart jumped when he saw Kurt lying across the ground at his feet, holding something in his arms. He dropped to his knees.

"Kurt?" he asked quietly to the boy who was sobbing. "Kurt, can you hear me?"

Tears raked down Kurt's face in glistening trails. His skin was pale, even in the glow of the street lamp, and his eyes were shut tight. Shaking his head, he was muttering a string of words that could not be heard.

Blaine furrowed his brows. "Kurt," he said, louder this time. "Kurt, I'm right here. Look up. Look at me."

But the boy remained on the ground, holding the figure.

The figure was dressed in a red-splattered shirt, denim jeans, and a sleek leather jacket.

Blaine stumbled back on his hands, gasping, realization striking him.

No, this was not him that was lying helplessly, covered in blood, in Kurt's arms.

No, this was not him that looked on the verge of death.

No, he was standing right here, in the flesh, yelling his head off.

"Kurt! I'm right here! Look at me! How can you not see me, Kurt?" he pleaded, his voice as loud as it would go.

Kurt made no move to reply. He continued to cry, to tug at the figure, muttering. He paid no attention to Blaine at all.

A thread of panic ran through Blaine. Quickly he got to his feet, eyes landing on the small crowd that had gathered behind the theater. He sprinted across the parking lot, finding his legs wobbly underneath him, and advanced on the gaggle of girls that was still there.

"Hey! Can you see me? Can you hear me? Look at me! I'm talking to you!" he demanded, raising his voice once he had reached them. He didn't care if his voice cracked.

The girls remained frozen where they stood. One girl's eyes began to well with tears and she turned to another, burying her face in her shoulder. They huddled close together until one of them said something that made them inch back toward the alley.

Exasperated, Blaine ran his hands through his hair, which he found was clean and silky beneath his fingers. He whipped around to face the parking lot, to face Kurt, and he stopped.

A large, crimson stain was spreading across the concrete where Kurt lay. An identical spot painted the front of Kurt's white t-shirt, making it stick to his chest. His hands were slippery in red. Spots covered his jeans and red was staring to flourish around his left eye; somehow he had gotten punched in the face.

Blaine wandered back over to him, just as an ambulance squealed into the parking lot, skidding to a halt.

"Kurt," he whispered. He shook his head and fell to his knees beside him. He was shocked to see his body up close, if that was even his body, if this was even real.

A nasty slash was torn at the base of his throat and blood pooled down his chest. Several gashes, leaking crimson, were open across his face, especially the long one that reached from the corner of his eye to his chin. His chest did not rise or fall, and that made Blaine bite his lip.

Nothing made sense. His body was there, huddled in Kurt's arms, unmoving, yet here he was. He was sitting beside Kurt, breathing and yelling and talking, yet no one seemed to see him. Not even Kurt looked in his direction. Blaine froze.

He was dead.

But no, he can't be dead, not now!

Three figures moved into his line of sight and he looked up. Three paramedics, all dressed in the same white uniform, crowded over Kurt. One of them said something that Blaine was unable to make out and Kurt screamed at them in reply, lunging over Blaine's body.

Blaine sat back on the ground in a comfortable position. His mind ran. If he was dead, shouldn't he be in heaven? Wasn't there the pearly gates of heaven he had to pass?

Well, he hadn't passed any damn pearly gates at this point, that was for sure.

He held his hand in front of his face. It was solid, fleshy, and he could see veins pulsing on the underside of his wrist. It all looked alive and real, and he could twine his fingers together without difficulty. If he was dead, then why was he able to see himself? Why was he in two places at once?

The shattering sound of Kurt's scream made him look up. Kurt was being pulled forcefully to his feet by a police officer, who easily locked his arms behind his back. Even then, Kurt screamed and kicked, just like he had with the boy who had held him.

Blaine swallowed. He watched as the paramedics carefully lifted his body onto a gurney, and he wasn't sure that it was even _his _anymore. It was mangled from the chest up, and it didn't look like him at all. It wasn't his, but at the same time, it was.

The paramedics rolled the gurney across the parking lot to the ambulance and settled it inside. One of them yanked wires down and stuck them in different places in Blaine's body, and Blaine flinched, though he knew he wouldn't feel it.

Kurt twisted and turned in the police officer's grip, shouting at the ambulance. He winced when he twisted, and Blaine remembered that he had been stabbed in the shoulder. Blood was gushing from his wound, soaking the back of his shirt.

The officer noticed this and hurried him to the ambulance, where a paramedic eagerly took him in. Blaine ran after them, slipping into the vehicle just as another nurse snapped the doors shut.

Blaine leaned against the doors. He watched as Kurt's shirt was removed and tossed to the side, as one of the nurses tried to tend to him as best she could with the ambulance tearing out of the parking lot and roaring down the highway, lights flashing.

Kurt screamed and protested and fought against the nurse with what was left of his strength. He constantly shouted one word, one name.

"_Blaine!"_

And that was all it took.

Blaine sunk to the floor of the vehicle and ducked his head.

* * *

Okay, I know this is an awful way to start a story, but trust me, it gets better. I give you props if you got to the end of this without crying. Thoughts and reviews are lovely.


	2. Chapter 2

Hello, readers!

I hope this update finds all of you in good company. Before I forget, happy National Day of Silence! I wrote a fic for the occasion last year, and I'm in the process of writing one for this year right now.

And also, Happy Titanic... Crashing Into... Iceberg Day... I guess. Oh, well, it's been 100 years, so I think it deserves a little recognition. And plus, I've been watching Titanic documentaries all day and I'm seeing the 3D movie tonight. Plus, my friend and I are going to see 'The Lucky One' Friday night! So excited.

So, there isn't much to discuss at this point, other than the fact that I've started writing the sequel to WaODM, the title to which has not been decided upon yet. But it's in the process, for those who care.

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee, but if I did, Mercedes and Sam would definitely get together and never break up and everything would be amazing.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

* * *

When Kurt came into consciousness, it was three-thirty in the morning.

The lights were all off and the curtains were drawn tightly over the windows, even though there was no sun to block out. The air was still and heavy, and smelled strongly like bleach and medicine and old soap that reminded him vaguely of his grandmother.

Sitting up, the blankets over him crinkled. They were thin and papery and made noise even if barely breathed. With a great motion, he pushed the sheets off the bed and crumpled them, tossing them on the floor. When he did, he wished he hadn't; it was cold, and the night gown over him only reached his knees.

Kurt blinked, adjusting to the darkness. Beeping came from all around him suddenly, high pitched and very chirpy, and he jolted.

A door on his right flung open and the lights flashed on and a woman in white dashed into the room. Her dark hair was frizzy and all over the place, her brown eyes wide with shock. She came quickly to Kurt's bedside and pressed a hand to his shoulder.

"Kurt," she said quietly in a kind of voice that sounded like dripping honey, sweet and calm, "you need to rest now, dear. Lay back down and we'll fix you up."

"Fix me up?" he squeaked. He pushed her hand away and sat up completely. When he did, he felt a painful tugging at his arms and looked down. His arms were laced and wired with clear tubes of all kinds, all of them leading to the hunky machines that surrounded him.

The woman chuckled pettily and checked the screen of one of the machines. She hit a few buttons and the chirping noise vanished. She went back to the door and gently shut it.

Wincing, Kurt rubbed his eyes. "What's going on?"

The woman paused as she came back to his bed. "Do you not remember, sweetheart?"

"No, I don't," he replied stubbornly. He stared at her, a lump growing in his throat. "What's going on? Why am I here?"

She ducked her head sadly and that was how he knew something had gone terribly wrong. Not saying a word, her eyes darted back and forth across one of the many screens. She licked her lips in thought.

"Where is Blaine?" Kurt shrieked. He jumped and the chirping started up again, louder than ever. He wanted to know where Blaine was, he wanted the chirping to stop, and he wanted to get answers _now._

The look on the nurse's face was grave and she stood ramrod straight as she pushed him back into the bed. She collected the sheets he had thrown on the floor and folded them delicately, setting them at the foot of the bed.

"My name is Miranda," she said quietly, checking the machines again, making sure none of them beeped anymore. "If you ever need me, I'll be one click of this button away." She gestured to the large red button on the wall.

With that, she left the room.

Kurt stared at the door in wonder. There was no way to move because the wires were confining him to the bed. There was no way to contact anyone because he no longer wore his jeans, which had his phone in their front pocket.

He was in the hospital. He was tethered to machines that made noises if his heart rate spiked. He was alone in a sterilized room with no answers.

Flopping back into the bed, he winced. He ripped a pillow from behind his head and stuffed it in his face, ignoring the pain from the tubes in his arms when they tugged against his skin.

For the next five minutes, he screamed madly into the pillow. He screamed until his throat was raw.

He had no answers. He had no human contact other than the nurse, Miranda.

And he had no way of knowing where Blaine was.

_Where was he?_

Kurt bolted upright in bed and threw the pillow across the room with as much strength as he could muster. It soared through the air and landed cleanly on the tile floor. He had been hoping it would've hit something.

Maybe even break it.

He didn't know how long it was, whether it was minutes or hours or years, when the door opened again. But it didn't matter to him. He had spent all that time tossing and turning in his bed, wondering where Blaine was, what had become of the five boys who jumped them.

This time, when the door opened, he was greeted with two familiar faces, both worn and tired.

"Oh, Kurt," Carole gasped quietly. She hurried to his bedside and pulled a chair close to him. "How are you feeling, darling?"

"I'm fine," he said stubbornly. She stared at him. "Okay, maybe my shoulder aches. And everything else."

Burt Hummel covered his mouth. His father looked exhausted, dark rings circling his eyes from lack of sleep. He was wearing what he would have had he been working at the shop, a jumpsuit with his name embroidered in the breast pocket. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he watched Kurt with a concerned look.

"Do you remember anything, Kurt?" Carole asked quietly, as though she thought raising her voice would wake someone, even if he was the only patient in the room. "Anything at all?"

"See, the nurse asked me that, too," Kurt pointed out tiredly. He felt exhausted all of a sudden, and he had a feeling that the tubes were lacing him with sleeping drugs. He wiggled his toes.

"And what did you tell her?" Burt asked after a moment of silence. He leaned his weight on one foot.

Kurt shrugged, noting the ache in his shoulder. "I didn't tell her anything. I asked where Blaine was."

This time, Carole was the one to turn away. Covering her mouth, she glanced back at her husband with sad eyes. Burt merely nodded at her, and she turned back in her chair to face Kurt.

Gooseflesh rose on his arms and legs, and Kurt widened his eyes. He nearly leapt out of the bed, had Carole not put her hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"What, Carole?" he demanded loudly, not caring if anyone outside the room would hear him. "What's wrong with Blaine? Where is he?"

"Oh, Kurt," she sighed softly and took her hand away. "Blaine is… well, he's not here anymore, Kurt."

He held his breath. "What the hell does that mean?" he asked and the last half of his sentence was muffled by a sob that shook his shoulders. The backs of his eyes prickled threateningly.

"It means…" Burt sighed, rubbed his face again. "It means Blaine's not here with us. He didn't make it."

"No!" Kurt thrashed and reached for the wires that fed into his arms. He ripped out a handful and winced from the agonizing pain that flooded up his arm. He pulled out another few. "No, I don't believe you! I'm getting out of here! I have to find him, now!"

Burt hurried forward to hold Kurt down by his shoulders. Studying the glance Burt sent her, Carole calmly pressed the red button that was wired into the wall, and waited for a nurse to come to calm him down.

Blaine paced outside one of the ICUs in the hospital. He knew that, two floors down, Kurt was resting in a regular room, hooked up on drugs and tubes and IV fluid. He had visited him around one o'clock, slipping in when a nurse came to check on him and staying for an hour, staring at the boy.

Kurt had slept soundly in his bed the entire time Blaine was there. Blaine had spent sixty minutes sitting on the foot of the bed and watching the boy shift and stir, the machines by the bed giving small chirps every few minutes.

Every so often, Kurt's heart rate rose and the chirping became adamant, but it slowly died to a hum. His face was pale, almost the color of milk, with dried tear tracks staining his cheeks. A blemish flourished around his eye, leaving a nasty red bruise, and his hair was lank and plastered to his forehead.

Blaine had wanted to reach out to him, but every time he did, his hand went straight through, brushing against nothing. After an hour of watching Kurt lay motionless, save the faint rise and fall of his chest, he left to return to his intensive care unit two floors higher.

By then, he had already been declared as dead.

The conclusion was reached quickly by the team of doctors that had received Blaine around eleven-thirty. They had crowded over him for an hour, injecting him with medicine, stitching him up, cleaning away the dried blood, shocking his pulse, but there was nothing to do. He had lost enough blood by then that there was nothing left to do.

Now, the curtains on the ICU were drawn, the door locked. Inside, one of the doctors and a mortician were slaving over the body—_his_ body—and preparing it. Blaine knew what they were preparing it for, and he did not want to think more on it.

The air reeked of chlorine and bleach and what seemed like every strong chemical known to man. It had not smelled as strong in Kurt's room. And he was surprised he could smell at all.

He could not touch anything. Yet he could smell. He could see, and he could talk, though no one would ever hear him. No one saw him. He was nothing, nothing but a boy who had been murdered, who was now a thought in someone's mind.

Blaine suddenly jumped out of the way of a nurse rushing down the hall, who knocked quickly on the ICU door and let herself in, when he realized that it would not hurt him. He could stand in front of an eighteen wheeler and not die, or jump off the Golden Gate Bridge and not drown or suffer the impact of hitting water from such a great height.

He was invincible, but with a tragic price.

Solemnly, he watched as people crowded the hallway outside the room. First, he saw Wes and David leaning against the wall on the other side of the hall. They had come from their homes in Westerville, two hours away, in the middle of the night, and they looked exhausted, both donning drowsy expressions. But Wes was covering his mouth, eyes wet. David had the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes.

Beside them stood Sadie. His sister was weeping, mascara running down her cheeks like spider's legs; she wore a pair of pink pajamas, her hair up in a messy bun. It was rare to see her cry, but Blaine supposed that it was an appropriate time to do so. He wanted to go to her and hug her until she stopped bawling, but he knew that was impossible.

His mother, Charlene, was in the room with the doctor and the mortician. She had arrived at the hospital the moment a nurse called her and hadn't left. By now, she was drained of energy, and she had been crying from the beginning; Blaine wondered when she would ever run out of tears.

Blaine had also seen Burt Hummel and his wife, Carole, wandering the halls. They had stayed with Charlene and Sadie for about an hour before checking in on Kurt. The last time he had seen Carole, she had tissues pressed to her face, clinging to Burt like he was her life preserver.

Now, Blaine plopped down on the tile floor outside the room. He rested his head in his hand and sighed.

He had woken from the darkness an hour after the ambulance had arrived at the hospital. There was no telling what this darkness was, or what it wanted, or why he seemed to fall into it, but it was there. In that time, he had evaded seeing the doctors mutilate his body, trying to pull him back.

Blaine covered his face, but kept his eyes open. There was no way he was going to succumb to this darkness right now, not when tension was strung in the air and everyone was waiting with baited breath.

At the end of the hallway, the elevators opened and everyone in the corridor snapped their heads up. Carole and Burt slowly moved down the hall and Blaine found himself standing up.

"Is Kurt alright?" he blurted. But then he remembered that he wouldn't be heard, and he cursed himself.

"What's the update on Kurt?" Wes asked. It was surprising to hear him sound so broken, so upset. He was always the strong one, the cocky one who never let anything or anyone chip away at his defenses, but now he was a mess.

Burt shrugged indifferently. "He woke up a little bit ago, but we had to give him some meds to calm him down."

Silence swept the hallway, icy and cold and weighted.

"He knows about Blaine now," Carole announced shakily, clinging onto her husband's arm. "He's very upset, and I don't know how he's going to handle it when he wakes up again."

Sadie gave a soft cry and covered her mouth. She lifted her head and wiped her cheeks of mascara, but the action only smeared it more until her skin looked ashen. She looked ready to say something, but fled instead and disappeared into the women's restroom at the other end of the hall.

Carole sighed and wiped her eyes with a tissue from her pocket.

"Tell him I'm fine," Blaine protested, jumping in front of them. "Tell him that I'm still here."

Burt, wrapping his arm around his wife, lead her to one of the empty chairs. He helped her sit down and he rubbed soothing circles in her back until her sniffles subsided.

Blaine threw his hands over his head. He let out an irritated yell and stormed down the hallway, away from the ICU and away from everyone. He could never bear seeing his mother's face when she finally decided to emerge from the room, and he sure as hell did not want to see his body.

He approached the elevator and stared at it. He didn't even try lifting his hand to hit a button because he knew he would never be able to touch it. In the past hours, he had tried to touch things, but they all ended up going straight through his hand, and a tingly feeling shot up his arm, like he hit his funny bone. No matter what he tried to grasp, he would never touch it.

Another test he had tried was walking through solid walls. It had worked with the door to Kurt's room, and with the door to his own ICU. The latter was a mistake, and he'd found his body—his own _body_—sprawled across a table with doctors hording around him like bees, blood soaking everything.

Needless to say he'd left after a moment.

Blaine stared at the doors, willing them to open, when a nurse walked past him and pressed the button, to his relief. He walked into the elevator when she did, and his only hope was that she was going to the same floor.

As the elevator traveled down—thank goodness, because Kurt's room was two floors below—he stared at the nurse. She had dark hair and matching eyes, wearing pink scrubs and holding a clipboard in her hands. On the paper attached to the clipboard, he read Kurt's name, followed by his medical history. She was Kurt's nurse, Blaine realized with a jolt of excitement.

When the doors opened with a ding, he eagerly followed her out into the hall and past the handful of doors. He walked in step with her, though it didn't really matter.

"What are you in for, kid?"

Blaine jumped at the sound of an old, raspy voice barking at him. He stopped and whipped around, only to find a short, elderly man staring at him through thick spectacles. His eyes were beady and small and watery and he glared at Blaine.

"A-are you talking to me?" Blaine stuttered after looking over his shoulder, hoping that the man was talking to someone behind him.

The old man gave a rattling cough in reply and waved dismissing hand at Blaine. He turned around and limped down the hallway, coughing as he went. He turned the corner and vanished.

Shaken, Blaine stared at the corner for a long moment. Then he turned around and hurried to catch up with the nurse. He reached her just as she was shutting the door behind her, and he slipped inside.

In the room, Kurt was lying in bed, a pillow over his face. Tubes were hooked up everywhere, piercing several places in his arms, throat, and chest. Soft murmurs were coming from him as he muttered words.

"Kurt," the nurse said cheerfully, "could you sit up for me?"

"What's the point anymore?" Kurt retorted malevolently. He tossed the pillow to the side and groaned at the movement. "I don't have anything to live for anymore."

The nurse sighed and patted his arm as she checked his monitors.

Blaine drifted through the room, standing by the side of Kurt's bed. There was nothing he wanted more than to crawl across the bed to him and hold him in his arms, to tell him it would be alright, to kiss him.

But that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

"You're going to be fine, Kurt," the nurse said and she sat down in a chair beside his bed. "You just need a little more time here and then you'll be able to leave. How does that sound?"

"How does dying sound to you?" he snapped back. "How would you like if the only one you ever loved just _died_?" His voice cracked painfully and Blaine flinched. He had never seen Kurt act so hostile before, especially towards figures of authority.

Before the nurse could reply, Kurt shook his head viciously. "No. _No. _I refuse to accept that Blaine's dead. He's not! Why are you lying to me?"

The nurse gave another soft sigh. "You're going to be okay, Kurt. You just need to rest."

"I don't need rest!" he shouted and he crossed his arms over his chest. "I need to rewind everything! Blaine didn't deserve to get h-hurt! We don't deserve this!" His eyes welled and he blinked hastily.

Blaine rested his chin in his hand. It was now that he saw the bandage wrapped over Kurt's left shoulder, covering the stab wound. He recoiled, recalling the painful cry Kurt had given when the boy slashed at him with the knife.

"You know what, honey?" the nurse said lightly and touched his hand; he withdrew his hand like the crack of a whip. "I think you could use a little more mediation. That would make you feel much better, and then, by the end of this week, maybe you could go home—"

Kurt thrust the heels of his hands against his eyes and shook his head. "I don't want to go home! _I want Blaine!_"

Blaine bit his lip and looked down at his hands. He could still see them, even if Kurt could not, if anyone else could not. He listened as Kurt ranted on for thirty more seconds, and then the nurse, frustrated, hit the red button wired to the wall and left the room.

After she left, Kurt hurled his pillow at the door, tears trailing down his cheeks. His eyes were rimmed with red and there were bruises underneath them, colored dark and purple. The color, the usual slight pink, was gone from his skin and was replaced with bone white. Blaine was horrified to see that his collarbones were a little more prominent in the nightgown and that his lips were chapped.

"It's okay, Kurt," he whispered softly, reaching out to grab the railing that surrounded the bed but not touching it. "You're going to be fine. I wish I could tell you that somehow. I wish I could be here for you, where you could actually see me." He chuckled shortly, sadly, before quieting.

The door to the room opened again and the same nurse walked in again, but this time she was accompanied by two other women in scrubs. One of them rolled in a tray filled with glass needles and clear liquid.

Kurt stared at them as they moved around his bed, checking monitors and the needles and the tubes that went into his arms. By now, tears were welling in his eyes and he bit his lip.

"Please, just tell me where Blaine is," he choked out.

Blaine let out a long sigh. He reached his hand out and laid it over Kurt's pale one. As he expected, he could not feel anything except the tingling sensation that ran up his arm. He withdrew his hand and sat back, watching the nurses tinker with the needles.

"We've already explained this, Kurt," said one of the nurses, a tall one with platinum blonde hair. She had a sweet face and a voice to match. She fiddled with filling one of his tubes with liquid. "We've gone over this, and your parents have told you all about it. I'm sorry."

"No," Kurt snapped. "You need to tell me where Blaine is right now, or so help me, I'll—"

The first nurse, the one Blaine had followed, touched his good shoulder. "Kurt, dear, you need to calm down. We'll get you some medication and then you'll be feeling much better, alright? Just hold on another minute."

Frustrated, Kurt let out another shriek and buried his face in his hands. Tears slipped from the corners of his eyes and moistened his hands, which he wiped on the bedspread.

The blonde nurse stepped back and, checking the tubes one last time, smiled at Kurt. "You're all ready to go. You're going to get some good sleep right now, Kurt, and when you wake up, you'll feel much better."

Kurt flopped back on his bed and crossed his arms, which made him wince. He stared madly up at the ceiling. "I hate you all. I don't care that you're trying to help me. I just want to see my Blaine again."

Blaine bit his lip at his words. The nurses glanced at one another before rolling the tray out into the hall and closing the door. Blaine stared at it for a long moment before tiptoeing to the other side of the room. He cursed himself when he realized that his movements wouldn't faze Kurt, not at all.

Letting out a soft sob, Kurt turned on his side, which disrupted the tubes, and he fixed them, annoyed. Blaine approached the bed and was able to see Kurt's face, pale and glistening with tears. He extended his hand and gently stroked the boy's cheek with the back of his hand, and the tingling feeling came again. He endured the feeling until he finally had to drop his hand.

He must've stayed in that position for hours, watching Kurt blink furiously, watching his breathing go from erratic to even and deep within a short amount of time. He watched Kurt's lips part ever so slightly as he slept.

Then, the darkness finally came for Blaine, and he disappeared.

The sun cast golden beams through the windows, the blinds turning them into slits. They streaked across the white tile of the hospital room and ran across the bed. The light landed across Kurt's face and he rolled over, his back to the window.

Kurt peeled his eyes open and was startled to see machines at his bedside. They were all humming and one gave a steady beep every few seconds. He propped himself onto his elbows and felt pain in his arms. Wincing, he looked down. Tubes wired themselves into his skin and led to the machines.

It came back to him in a flash, and he flopped back down.

His memories were clouded with darkness, with starry skies and buttered popcorn and dystopian movies made from bestselling trilogies. There was running, wind whipping against his face, and then there was screaming, screaming until his throat was raw. A knife to the back of the head and a slash down the shoulder, scrapes on the palms and on the knees. Blood, blood everywhere: on his shirt, on his hands, on his jeans.

On Blaine.

The slash on his throat, the scrape across his cheek. Blood soaking through his shirt and staining his skin red. The group of boys, slurring their words and sounding drunk, carrying weapons in their pockets and chasing them through the back parking lot.

The group of people who had crowded behind the theater after hearing screams and pleas of help, and the ambulances with their flashing lights and wailing sirens. The smell of blood in the air, and then the stench of bleach as he was lead into the ambulance.

After that, nothing.

Furious, Kurt sat up and placed his arms over his knees. Then he noticed the small crowd lingering at the foot of his bed and he jumped.

All lounging in chairs, some of them looking half asleep, were the members of the New Directions. Rachel was sitting upright in her chair, ramrod straight, drumming her fingers in an erratic pattern on her knee, eyes bright and wide and alert. She looked extremely stressed, looking at the way her perfect hair was mussed in the back and the bruises that underlined her eyes. Currently she was staring out the window.

Next to her was Finn, who was crumpled up in his chair. His lips were parted as he snored softly and drool escaped from the corner of his mouth. He slept soundly. Beside him was Mercedes, her knees tucked up to her chest and her chin resting on her knees; her eyes were shut but she didn't appear to be completely asleep.

Tina Cohen-Chang rested the bench that stood by the door under the windows. Quinn Fabray sat right beside her, in her wheelchair. Kurt raised his eyebrows worriedly, then slumped back when he remembered the blonde girl's vehicle accident, confining her to a wheelchair.

Quinn's short hair was pulled back by a headband and her elbow was propped against the armrest, her chin in her hand. Tina had earbuds in and the music was loud enough that Kurt could hear it, some rock tune.

Kurt licked his lips and watched them all sleep for another minute, two minutes, three minutes. He watched as Finn stirred and rubbed his face, and Tina as she absently adjusted her earbuds in her ears.

"Kurt!" Rachel whispered excitedly. She just about jumped out of her chair when she saw him wide awake, and she clutched the arm rests until her knuckles turned white.

He looked at her flatly. "Hi, Rachel."

"Oh, _Kurt_," she hissed and got out of her chair, coming over to his bedside. She kneeled by him and rested her hands on the bars that surrounded the bed. "How are you feeling? Can I get you anything? A nurse? Medicine? Food?"

"Rachel, calm down," he said weakly and waved a hand at her. "I'm fine. I don't need anything right this second."

She recoiled and leaned back a little, looking away briefly. "Oh, okay. How are you feeling?"

"Sore," he admitted. He rolled his bandaged shoulder back until he winced. "But I'm fine."

"Do you…" Rachel pursed her lips, thinking. Her mascara was smeared off to one side and it looked like a wing tip. "Do you know about…?"

"Blaine? He's still here. I know it. He's not dead, like my dad says he is." Kurt's voice cracked. It was almost painful to say the name and it tasted familiar, but with a bitter twist to it.

Rachel bit her lip. "Oh, Kurt…"

He gave her an odd look.

She covered her face and shook her head, her chestnut hair dull in the sunlight; it looked like she hadn't washed it in days. "Oh, Kurt. I'm so sorry about this. I wish this hadn't happened, and I—"

Kurt reached out and touched her shoulder to stop her. "It's okay, Rachel. I just… don't want to talk about it right now, if that's okay with you."

"Of course, of course." She hastily stood up and brushed off her skirt. She returned to her chair and sat down, crossing her legs.

"Kurt?" a small voice piped up from the other side of the room. Quinn was pushing herself into a sitting position, blinking tiredly. Their eyes met and that was all it took for her to roll herself across the room; she was at his side in a moment. "Kurt, how are you?"

"I'm fine, Quinn," he said softly. He crossed his legs, Indian style, and folded his hands in his lap. His hands were pale, practically white, and his knuckles were painfully prominent.

She shook her head. "I know you're not. You don't look well, Kurt. I'm getting a nurse in here—" She broke away from the bed to hit the red call button on the wall.

Kurt lunged and caught her wrist before she could. "Quinn, I don't need anything right now. Thank you, but I'm fine for now."

Slowly she retreated, looking ashamed, and rolled herself beside Rachel's chair, hands resting in her lap. The two girls shared a look and Kurt swallowed, hard.

On the bench, Tina pulled out her earbuds and pushed aside her music player. She rubbed her eyes tiredly and clambered to her feet shakily. She looked unsteady on her feet, either because of lack of sleep or because of the platform heels she was wearing. Kurt guessed it was some of both.

"Kurt," she crooned and pushed dark hair over her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Kurt held up his hands. "Okay, to save everyone trouble in the future: yes, I'm feeling fine. No, I'm not okay, and no, I'm not hungry."

Sighing in defeat, Tina puckered her lips, which had traces of pink lipstick.

The three girls pulled chairs up to Kurt's bed and sat there, whispering quietly to him. The clock on the wall, hanging over the door, ticked with each second, and Kurt counted over two hundred before Mercedes woke.

Her mascara was smudged at the corners and her earrings were caught in wisps of her hair. Lazily she sat up, but jumped when she saw Kurt. She scooted to the edge of her chair, eyes wide.

"Kurt—" she started.

"I'm fine," he interrupted automatically. The words came out a little sharper than he had intended and the girl sat back, lips pressed in a flat line.

Mercedes gave a short sigh and nodded. She jogged Finn awake with the kick of his chair and he started, blinking and muttering, "What, where's the fire? I'm awake."

"Finn! Your brother's awake and all you can do is sleep. I can't believe you," Rachel scolded with a hard glare. She folded her arms across her petite chest and looked away.

Finn rubbed his eyes. "Oh, come on, Rach."

"Don't 'come on' me," she snapped. "You're not the one who has been keeping watch over Kurt since six."

Kurt furrowed his brows. "Wait, six? As in, six this morning?"

Quinn nodded. There was a glint at her ears as the light caught her earrings. "Rachel got here at six, and the rest of us got here at seven."

"But you shouldn't be here right now," Kurt protested and started to get up; Tina held him back to avoid the tubes tangling.

"What do you mean?" Mercedes asked, the light illuminating her face.

Kurt shook his head, bewildered. "It's Monday. School… You're all supposed to be in class right now. Aren't you?" His wide eyes scanned their faces.

Finn blanched and he opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He looked to Rachel for help, but she was speechless as well. The three other girls did not say a word. Instead they cast looks at each other.

"What? What's wrong? Say something!" Kurt demanded. A panicked feeling zapped through him and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

"Kurt, it's not Monday," Rachel said in almost a whisper. "It's Saturday. It hasn't even been a day."

He watched her cautiously. "A day? Since… since…" He covered his mouth, hid his face from his friends.

"Since last night," Quinn finished coldly and she wrapped her fingers around the silver bars that surrounded the bed. "It's been only ten hours since you went to the movies, Kurt. Since you were attacked."

"No, no," Kurt murmured, chewing on his thumbnail. "No. It's not… He's not…"

Tina sucked in her breath. When she moved hair from her eyes, the bracelets on her wrists clinked together. "Blaine's funeral is on Friday. You'll be admitted from the hospital on Thursday."

Kurt stared at her, feeling the backs of his eyes prickle.

"We're all sorry, Kurt," Finn said quietly. He looked down at his hands as he spoke. "We, uh, know how much Blaine meant to you and everything."

"Meant to me? He is the only one I'll ever love, Finn!" he exclaimed. He faintly registered the sounds of the monitors beeping wildly but did not pay too much attention to them. All of a sudden he couldn't breathe in enough air and he found himself gasping.

Finn leaned back, looked sheepish, and Rachel's eyes opened wide. The girls look frightened.

The door swung open and the nurse with dark hair came in. She was wearing blue scrubs this time, not pink, and she nodded cheerfully to everyone.

"Hello," she greeted while she checked the monitors and machines; slowly the beeping subsided and Kurt's gasping fell to slow breaths. The girls dropped their shoulders in gradual relief. "I'm Kurt's nurse, Miranda. I'm assuming you're all his friends?"

They all nodded numbly, but Rachel was the one to speak.

"Yes, we are," she said sternly, not taking her eyes from Kurt. "We're all in the glee club at our school."

Miranda nodded with a smile. "What a coincidence. I used to sing in high school, too," she mentioned with a short chuckle. It wasn't as if she was in the same room as a boy who had just lost someone to a band of killers; she was working in a candy factory, filled with sweet things and sunshine.

"Interesting." Rachel smoothed her skirt down. "Kurt's going to be alright, isn't he?"

"He'll be fine," she replied, standing back from the monitors. She wrote something down on the clipboard attached to the side of the machine. "Just a few more days to heal, a few more days to calm down, and he'll be free to go home. He'll still have to take meds and everything, but he'll be out of here, that's for sure."

"I don't want to leave," Kurt whimpered. "I don't ever want to leave here."

Miranda stared at him funny. She looked over at Rachel for some kind of confirmation and when Rachel didn't look back, she turned to Kurt.

"Why's that, honey?" she asked.

"Because Blaine's still here," Kurt said adamantly. He clenched his hands into fists at his sides. "I'm not leaving without Blaine."

Miranda's sugary smile faded and she licked her lips. "Then honey, you're going to be here a long time."

Blaine paced outside Kurt's room, eager. Part of him wanted to go through the door and into the room, to see Kurt. But the other part kept him out in the hall, afraid of the condition Kurt would be in. Would he be as thin as a rail, bones sticking out at sharp angles? Still asleep? Tossing and turning, and crying?

He stopped pacing and approached the door. Carefully he stuck his hand through the door and felt the tingling sensation rip up his arm. He yanked it back quickly. Everything puzzled him, from the fact that he couldn't be seen, couldn't be heard. He was dead, wasn't he? That slash to the throat had been enough to kill him, hadn't it?

A raspy voice broke his reverie, "Hey, kid. You lost or somethin'?"

Blaine whipped around, startled. He was surprised to feel his heart pounding in his chest. If he was dead, as he thought he was, shouldn't his heart be still and silent and not be able to jump into his throat?

Down the hall, glaring insistently at him, was an old man, dressed in a tweed suit, a fedora perched on his head. He gripped a cane in one frail hand, which was spidered with veins across the back. He gazed at Blaine from behind thick spectacles and began staggering down the hall.

Instinctively Blaine took a step back. He clearly recognized the man, the memory flashing back to his mind quickly. He had seen the man when he'd visited Kurt hours ago. The man had asked him what he was doing and Blaine had been so stunned that he hadn't answered.

"Who are you?" he finally asked.

The man stopped halfway down the hall. He rolled his eyes behind his glasses and waved a hand at him.

"You young kids are all the same, aren'tcha?" he asked in a gruff voice. He removed his fedora and scratched his head, then replaced the hat.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know who you are," Blaine said, shaking his head apologetically. He stopped, and his eyes widened. "Wait, you can _see _me? You can actually see me?"

The man chuckled. "No need to whisper, young man. No one can hear you. No one can hear me, either, but hey, that's alright with me. No one listened to me when I actually had somethin' to say."

Blaine rubbed his temples. "But you can see me. And you can hear me."

"And I'm talkin' to ya, too," the man added. He finally came to stand in front of Blaine and flexed his hand over the ball of his cane. He pulled off his glasses and shakily cleaned the lenses against the hem of his button down.

"Oh, my God," Blaine breathed. He suddenly felt dizzy, but that shouldn't happen, should it? If he was dead, he shouldn't feel any of this, right?

"What? Cat gotcha tongue, boy?" the man questioned. He didn't wait for Blaine to reply before lifting his cane off the ground and tapping against Kurt's door three times. It thudded audibly.

Blaine sucked in air through his teeth. "What are you doing?"

"I'm getting that blasted nurse's attention for ya. You've been out here long enough running ruts in the floor," the man replied, setting the cane down. "She was my nurse a few months ago. Sweet as sugar, but she kept talkin' and talkin', and I swear, that's what got me. Wouldn't pay attention enough to see that I was busy havin' a heart attack."

"You didn't need to do that," he protested. "I can—"

The man chuckled. "You can walk through doors, can'tcha? Isn't that what you were gonna say?"

Blaine stiffened. "I can, but I don't like to. It feels weird."

"You're weird, for a newbie. Most of the ones I know just love walkin' through stuff." He coughed loudly.

"But you're…"

He narrowed his eyes, the lenses magnifying his eyes. "I'm what, kid?"

"Nothing." Blaine shook his head. "No, nothing."

The door opened at that moment and Blaine jumped. Kurt's nurse stuck her head out the door and glanced both ways down the hall. After a moment, she sighed and shut the door. But before she did, Blaine caught a glance of Rachel sitting in a chair beside Kurt's bed, Quinn with her.

The old man _humph_ed under his breath. "What'd ya do that for, kid? I use my energy to get that damned nurse to open the door and you don't go in. What's wrong witcha?"

Blaine let his jaw drop. "Energy? What are you talking about?"

"You newbies are all the same," the man replied. He sighed and turned away from Blaine. "You think that because you're dead, you're useless, like no one can see ya. But you're wrong, kid."

"Who are you?" Blaine called after him, not afraid to raise his voice now.

But the man was gone. Hadn't he been only a few feet away just now? Where was he?

Blaine clutched his head in both hands and let out an aggravated moan.

The murmur of voices brought him to turn around. At first he thought it was another gaggle of nurses passing by to check on another patient in this hallway, but instead, he saw Burt Hummel and Carole coming out of the elevator.

Behind them, he recognized the rest of the glee club: Artie, Mike, Santana with her arm looped around Brittany, who was holding an oversized stuffed bear, Puck, Rory, and Sugar. Mr. Schuester brought up the rear, the last to come out of the elevator.

Burt and Carole led the way down the hall, Burt's arm around his wife. Artie rolled behind them with Sugar propped in his lap, arms around his neck, glancing around. Puck clasped a large bouquet of roses in one hand and looked like he didn't know what to do. Santana kept Brittany close to her side; Mr. Schue rubbed his temples as he walked.

"This is his room," Burt said quietly as he came to a stop in front of Blaine.

Instinctively, Blaine moved out of the way. It was habit, something that he was sure would never go away.

Burt knocked twice on the door and it flew open almost immediately. Rachel stood on the other side. Typically, her face would have glowed, but it was still flat and grave. Upon seeing Burt and Carole and the rest of the glee club, she opened the door wider and stepped aside to let them in.

After Mr. Schue entered the room, Blaine snuck in behind him, just before Rachel closed the door. The members of the club surrounded Kurt's bed, all eerily silent. Blaine made his way over to the bed and shifted between Artie's wheelchair and Quinn to stand.

Kurt had his hands folded flatly in his lap and he scanned the faces of his friends. His eyes were not their normal murky blue; instead, they were gray, a stormy gray. Blaine swallowed.

"Hi, Kurt." Brittany gave the tiniest of smiles and waved pettily.

"Hi, boo," Kurt said back and looked up at her.

The blonde looked to Santana, who nodded. She unwound Santana's arm from her waist and leaned forward to place the stuffed bear in Kurt's lap. It was larger than a small toddler, with brown fur and a bright red ribbon tied around its neck. A small card was attached to the bow.

"We hope you get better soon," she said, her words precise as if she had practiced saying it before coming here. "And I drew the card in art class. My teacher wouldn't accept it though because I drew it all in crayon and we were supposed to be using paint."

Kurt's lips curved up slightly and he worked the card away from the bow. "Thank you, Brittany. It means a lot to me."

Santana gave a small sigh and pulled the blonde back into her arms, resting her chin on her shoulder. "We're very sorry, Kurt," she said tenderly, something very unlike her usual snippy tone. "We hope you'll allow us to pray for you, even though half of us don't even pray."

Kurt remained silent, disregarding her words and reading the card. He folded the card, gave Brittany another smile, and set the teddy bear to the side.

"Thank you, Santana," he started, "but I don't think prayer will help me now."

"Will flowers?" Puck piped up, holding out the flowers awkwardly. It was a bouquet of red and yellow roses, all blooming and fresh, water droplets dotting the petals.

Blinking, Blaine was unable to take his eyes off of the flowers. They were the same kind that Kurt had given him months ago when he won the audition for Tony for 'West Side Story', and the same that Blaine had given him the night of their date. Had they known, or was it just a coincidence?

Kurt didn't reach out to accept the flowers. He simply studied them for the longest time until Carole broke the silence and said, "Here, Noah, I'll take them." She held them graciously and left the room to find a vase and water.

"Listen, Kurt, we're here for you. We understand that this is a very hard thing to go through and to understand," Mr. Schue said solemnly from his position at the foot of the bed, his hands folded in front of you. "And we hope that you'll let us do what we can to help you."

Kurt nodded, but ducked his head to blink away wetness in his eyes. Blaine wanted to hug him and hold him in his arms, whisper into his hair and tell him that everything would be alright.

"Thank you, Mr. Schue," Kurt said, his voice choppy. "Thank you, everyone, for coming to see me. I hope I didn't take too much time out of your precious Saturday."

Rachel gasped. "Kurt, don't say that! We wanted to come see you!"

"We really did. I mean, you're really important to us. I think we can afford to get out of bed early on a weekend in this kind of situation," Sugar agreed with the nod of her head. She tightened her arms around Artie's neck.

"I mean, what kind of people would we be if we didn't come see you?" Puck said, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

Mike lingered close to Tina and wrapped an arm around her waist. "It was the least we could do for you."

"I don't want anyone doing anything for me," Kurt said calmly. "I just don't want to accept anything, and that's it. I don't want to accept the fact that we were attacked, and the fact that he's… dead because of the stupid jocks who ambushed us. I just don't."

Blaine reached out and let his hand trail down Kurt's arm absently. His fingers tingled. "It's alright, Kurt. I'm here with you. You don't need to be afraid anymore."

But he gained no reaction from the boy. Kurt merely sniffed and licked his lips, raising his chin a little. He remained silent.

"If it's okay, Kurt," Rory said, his accent thick, "we'd like to sing you something. I mean, if we don't get kicked out first, of course. I don't think this hospital approves of people singing to patients."

"Go ahead," Kurt said. He pulled his knees to his chest and felt finally able to breathe when everyone moved away from the bed.

Blaine bit his lip and watched as Burt hunkered down on the bench under the windows, arms on his knees. The rest of the club formed a small clump by the foot of the bed. Mr. Schue joined Burt on the bench, whispered something to him.

"Kurt," Mercedes said, clearing her throat, "we would just like to sing you something. I know it won't make you feel better, but it will make us feel better. We know you're in a lot of pain right now and…" She trailed off, unable to finish her sentence.

"We're dedicating this to you and Blaine," Quinn finished for her. "I hope that's okay with you."

Kurt gave an indifferent shrug and did not say a word.

With that, Quinn dropped her head. Everyone fell silent and then Finn awkwardly opened his mouth, singing softly.

_Sorry, I never told you, all I wanted to say,_

_And now it's too late to hold you,_

'_Cause you've flown away, so far away_

As he faded, Rachel took up, her voice strong and fluid. Her eyes did not move from Kurt, insistent and glimmering.

_Never had I imagined living without your smile,_

_Feelin' and knowing you hear me,_

_It keeps me alive, alive_

Blaine let his eyes shut, listening as the rest of the group joined in, voices molding together sweetly. Although he had only spent a few months with them, he could pick out each individual's voice.

_And I know you're shining down on me from heaven,_

_Like so many friends we've lost along the way,_

_And I know eventually we'll be together,_

_One sweet day,_

_Eventually I'll see you in heaven_

Even with his eyes shut, Blaine recognized the clear voice of Mike as he took up the next set of lyrics. He hardly ever sung during class, and now, the nervousness in his voice was evident.

_Darling, I never showed you,_

_Assumed you'd always be there,_

_I, I took your presence for granted,_

_But I always cared,_

_And I miss the love we shared,_

_I know you're shining down on me from heaven,_

_Like so many friends we've lost along the way,_

_And I know eventually we'll be together,_

_One sweet day,_

_Picture a little scene from heaven_

Artie and Rachel took turns singing each line, and when their voices mingled occasionally, it sounded wondrous.

_Although the sun will never shine the same,_

_I'll always look to a brighter day,_

_Yeah, Lord, I know when I lay me down to sleep,_

_You will always listen as I pray,_

_And I know you're shining down on me from heaven,_

_Like so many friends we've lost along the way,_

_And I know eventually we'll be together,_

_One sweet day_

Chin propped in his hand, Blaine licked his lips. Beside him, Kurt had a hand over his mouth, wetness welling at the corners of his eyes. Hastily he wiped them away. Blaine, disregarding everything, reached up and brushed his fingertips against the side of Kurt's face.

He was broken, and the sound of Rachel stifling a sob made him look away from the boy in the bed.

_Sorry, I never told you,_

_All I wanted to say_

Holding the note, though it wavered, Rachel covered her mouth with both hands. Her eyes were red rimmed and she hurriedly wiped away tears.

Blaine wanted to console them both, the brunette and Kurt, but all he could do was drift away from the bed and stand in the patch of sun that spread across the tile floor. He felt nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

Hello, readers!

I hope this update finds you all well. I absolutely can't wait until this week's Glee, what with Rachel and Kurt doing their NYADA callbacks! And Kurt with the Phantom of the Opera... amazing. And Rachel doing a reprise of Don't Rain on My Parade should be fabulous! I'm just freaking out so don't worry about me.

Reviews and thoughts on this chapter would be lovely.

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee, but if I did, I would make sure Joe and Quinn didn't get together.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

* * *

The darkness was captivating, alluring. It was deep, like a trench, dark and never ending. There was no way up or down, in or out, left or right. It was a void and it was silent, all silent. That was the thing that annoyed Blaine the most. No sound, no music.

It came for him around noon, after the glee club had left. They had stayed for hours upon hours, trying to cheer Kurt up with silly songs and homemade cards written on the napkins the nurses brought with Kurt's lunch. He was up to eating solid food, but never did more than stir it around.

Blaine had stood at the foot of the bed, right in front of him, and watched him stir around food, nodding to what everyone was telling him. Tina had snuck in a small speaker that she connected to her music player and they blasted songs from 'Wicked' until the nurse came in to turn it down. Rachel had tried to get Kurt to sing with her when Tina's music was on, but all he could do was hum a few bars.

Quinn had spent the time nestled in her chair against the windows, reading the magazines that were in a pile on vanity by the sink; they were all old and outdated, from many years ago, but she didn't appear to care. Santana let Brittany sit in her lap as they listened to the conversations around them, and she twirled her fingers in the blonde's hair.

Then, when noon rolled around, the nurse had come in and asked them to leave, to say that visiting hours would resume around five that evening and go for an hour. Reluctantly they had gone, but not without showering Kurt with hugs and kind words. Kurt had smiled for them but it faded as soon as they left the room.

That was when the darkness had consumed Blaine.

Now it was almost two o'clock in the afternoon, and Blaine was not at the hospital.

Gasping, his eyes snapped open and he was blinded by sunlight. It bathed him in an orange glow, sure to be warm, though it went unfelt. Head spinning, he forced himself up, propping himself on his elbows. Stringy grass surrounded him, dry and crunchy, and he looked around.

The first thing he saw was a slab of marble with a rounded top looming behind him, carvings etched on the front. Squinting, he realized it was a headstone and he jumped to his feet. He back up and he only stopped when he felt a tingling sensation run through his legs. He had backed through another headstone, this one of dark stone.

Many similar stones surrounded him, planted in an acre of grass that stretched before him vastly, seeming almost in the middle of nowhere. A chain link fence bordered the square plot of land.

He was in a cemetery.

"You must be the new hire, right?"

He whipped around when a floaty voice reached his ears, scanning the cemetery wildly. A young girl with flowing blonde hair lounged against one of the headstones, draped over it. Her hair was made of pure sunlight, shining and glistening, and she wore a pair of denim shorts that highlighted her lengthy legs; she wore a long sleeve shirt with pink stripes. She was beautiful, but Blaine didn't notice that right away.

The girl peeled herself from the headstone and shook out her hair, and it fell to her midback. She waltzed over to Blaine and ran a finger down his arm. Tense, he shook her off.

"Oh, come on," she laughed, and her voice was like wind chimes. She circled him slowly, eyes running up and down his figure. "You wouldn't treat a fellow ghost like that, would you?"

"Ghost?" he snapped.

She stopped. "Let me guess. You haven't come to terms with yourself, have you?"

"Come to terms with what?" he asked rigidly. He took a step away from her and folded his arms over his chest.

The girl laughed again. She shamelessly perched on another headstone, crossing her legs. "With you becoming a ghost, of course. What else would I possibly be talking about?"

Blaine shook his head. "I don't know," he sighed, and then he stopped. "Wait—"

She held up a hand. "Before you say anything more, I'll take the words out of your mouth. Yes, I can see you. Yes, I can hear you. Yes, I am a ghost," she recited and tapped her chin. "Can you think of anything else I might have forgotten?"

He dropped his mouth open a little.

"Oh!" she squeaked and jumped down from the headstone, landing cleanly in a pair of ballet flats. "Yes, you're dead, Blaine Anderson. Dead as a doornail."

"How do you know who I am?" Blaine gasped, furrowing his brows.

She laughed again, and Blaine wanted to hit her upside the head. "Please, darling. I know everyone who passes through this place, and you are no exception." She studied his blank expression. "Don't tell me. You've never been to a cemetery before and this is your first time standing on hallowed ground."

He shook his head slowly as to not make the world spin. "No, I've been to one before. I just…" He stopped and looked up at her. For a moment he was captivated by her sparkling eyes, eyes that seemed to be made of emeralds. "I just don't know why I'm here right now. I mean, I was at a hospital a few hours ago—"

"What day is it?" she asked, cutting into his speech.

"What?"

"Answer the question, hobbit."

Grinding his teeth, he let the nickname slide. "Saturday, right?"

She grinned knowingly. "Nope. Monday, knucklehead."

"How is it Monday? I was just in the hospital a few hours ago with—" He stopped himself. "A friend of mine," he finished lamely. He saw, rather than felt, a slight breeze wash over the plot of land, sending the branches of the lone tree in the corner bending. It wafted the scent of pollen and flowers toward him, and he was surprised he could actually smell.

"That is where you're wrong," she said in a happy manner. She traced the top of a headstone with manicured fingers. "You must've just come to, right? And don't fool me, kid. I know what I'm talking about. Have you?"

"Come to?" Blaine repeated. He scratched the back of his head, suddenly feeling inferior in front of this girl who seemed no older than him. "Like… come out of unconsciousness?"

The girl paused, considered it. "Yeah, sure. Whatever floats your boat."

"I guess I did," he said hesitantly. "Come to, I mean."

She snapped her fingers and grinned, showing straight, white teeth. "Knew it."

"How do you know my name?" he fired, taking a step towards her.

"You're my assignment," she quipped, as if the answer was obvious. She flitted around him, her flats audibly crunching against the grass, and she leaned lazily against another headstone, this one tall and made of white marble.

Blaine watched her closely. "What assignment?"

She laughed uproariously. "Man, you really _are _a newbie."

It rang in Blaine's head, that word: newbie. The old man at the hospital had called him that, and now this girl was calling him that. He tilted his head, puzzled.

"You're new at this, aren't you?" she asked, her tone flattening from its pompous air.

"At dying? Just a little." He blew air through his lips and ran a hand through his curls.

The girl remained silent as she bathed in the sun, the breeze blowing through her long hair. Of course, it did not move. She was no taller than him, which was a surprise; most of the girls he had encountered were taller than him by at least an inch. Her skin was milky and smooth, clear of blemishes. She was thin, with a petite frame.

"You know, it's not polite to stare," she mentioned, breaking his reverie. "Boy, you're really out of it, aren't you?"

"You did say I was new at this," Blaine muttered. He plopped down on the grass and leaned back against a headstone. But he slipped straight through the stone and fell on his back. Surprised, he rolled to his knees.

"What's got your knickers in a wad?" she questioned as she hopped down from the headstone and wandered over to him, hands on her hips.

Blaine looked up at her. "I kind of, um, fell through this…" He gestured to the tombstone.

"That would explain why you were on your back a second ago," she said, smiling.

"Don't make fun of me," he said pointedly and got to his feet. He stared at her, and found she was an inch under his height.

She held her hands up in defense. "Oh, I'm not. I used to do that all the time when I was new. It freaked the hell out of me."

"How are you able to touch the headstones?" he questioned and pointed at the one she had been sitting on earlier.

"It takes practice, kid," she said simply. She reached up and patted his cheek cheerfully. "Something you need to start on if you're ever gonna get up there." She lifted her face up to the sky, staring at it almost longingly.

Blaine looked up with her. "Do you mean heaven?"

"No," she said blandly. "I meant a first class seat on that nice 747 up there." With her manicured nail, she pointed to the plane that was whirring overhead. It disappeared behind a cloud, the sound of the engines fading. "I meant heaven, dumbo. Sheesh, I got the silly one, it seems. Every time, I swear."

Again, he let the comment slide. "And how do I get up there?" he asked uneasily.

The girl danced away from him, footsteps quiet and quick. "You have to complete your assignment."

"What assignment is that?" he demanded, growing panicky. In what world did he have an "assignment" that needed to be carried out?

For a long moment, she watched him. "I don't know. I don't know what you've been through, or what happened that caused you to end up on this side of the wrong side of the Light. You have to figure that out on your own, Blaine."

The sound of his name in her voice made him shudder. "How do you know my name?"

Pulling an elastic from her wrist and yanking her long hair up into a pony tail, she flopped back onto the grass. Looking up at him, she patted the space beside her. Hesitantly he obeyed and laid down in the grass. She curled her arms under her head and did not speak for a long while, just stared at the clouds moving across the sky.

Then, as Blaine started to grow impatient, she said, "You're my personal newbie. It's mandatory that I know your name. I would be a pretty bad guardian if I didn't even know your name."

"And why am I your personal newbie?" he complained.

"Why are we dead?" she retorted metaphorically. She huffed. "Because. You were the next person in the Lima area to drop—sorry about that, by the way—and I was the next available guardian who hadn't passed on yet," she explained briskly. She pointed up at the sky, at the clouds. "Does that look like a pig to you? Or a sheep?"

Blaine squinted. "A sheep. But I'm confused."

"Aren't we all?"

"How long have you been…?" He pinched his lips together.

"Dead?" The girl turned her head to look at him. "About five years now. But I really think that looks like a pig. You can clearly see the curly tail."

He sat up abruptly. "Five _years_? Shouldn't you have—why aren't you—?"

"In heaven?" she finished for him. "Because I haven't completed my own assignment."

"What's your assignment?"

She chewed daintily on her nail. "One, it's to settle the score I had in high school, and two, it's to help you out and get you up there." She pointed up at the sky.

Blaine swallowed over the lump in his throat. The way her voice dropped at the end of her sentence made his stomach turn. "What happened when you were in high school?"

"Do you not know who I am?" She sat up and glared at him with fire in her eyes. "Please tell me you've at least heard of me, or saw the article in the paper. Something."

"It would help if I knew your name," Blaine said thickly.

She sighed, covered her face, and fell back into the dry grass again. "My face on the front cover of the Lima Tribune should spark some recognition. I mean, the picture they used was of me on the top of the pyramid. You can hardly forget the head cheerleader who's on the top of the pyramid," she said. Then she pushed her hands away from her face when he didn't reply. "Wait, where are you from, kid?"

Blaine reached for a fistful of grass, but couldn't clutch it or tear it from the soil. "Here."

"I meant," she rephrased, "where are you from? Like, what city? Did you move here something?"

"I moved," he admitted. "Just a few months ago, from Westerville with my mom and my sister."

Delighted, she clapped her hands together. "That explains why you don't know me! Westerville doesn't know shit when it comes to Lima news." She dropped her hands to her sides. "Plus, you were probably like… what, twelve when it happened, right?"

"When what happened?" he snapped.

She yanked him down into the grass by the back of his shirt and directed him up at the sky. "That looks like a bird, don't you think?"

"That's because it is a bird. It's a hawk," he said, watching the bird swoop out of sight, and he chuckled inwardly when she shoved him in the shoulder. "But what happened?"

She eyed him for a moment, seeming almost hesitant. "I got hit by a car in my school's parking lot on the way back to the gym to grab my bag," she said carefully. "Stupid diver after a football game, who was probably drunk, and he flat ran me over. He hit another one of my friends by her leg and she only had to get her foot amputated. The rest of her leg was able to be saved."

Shaken, Blaine remained silent.

She cleared her throat. "My name is Victoria Langdon and I was in the path of a drunk driver the night my high school's football team won our state championship," she recited. "Now you know who I am. Happy?"

"But…" He stopped.

"But what?" She got to her feet and stuffed her hands in the pockets of her shorts. She looked extremely cross and she gave a great sigh.

"How can you not be in heaven right now?" he asked, standing with her. "You didn't do anything wrong. It was the driver who hit you."

Victoria shrugged. "I'm just not," she said briskly and shook her head. She pinched her lips.

"Okay, one more question," he said quickly.

"What?"

Blaine resisted the urge to smack her in the face. "If you were killed by a drunk driver after a football game, doesn't that mean you should be wearing what you had on when you were killed? Shouldn't you be wearing a cheerleading outfit?"

Victoria chuckled a little. "Why would you say that?"

"Because I was wearing this when I was k-killed," he said, stuttering. He glanced down at himself, tugging at the hem of his jacket. "I was wearing a white shirt, jeans, and this jacket."

The blonde stared at him for an uncomfortable amount of time, and Blaine started to fidget.

"This was the outfit they put me in for my burial," she answered thickly, her eyes hard like panes of glass. "So, why don't you start explaining yourself, Mr. Blaine. Start from the beginning so I can get a look at what I'm working with."

* * *

The sound of ringing echoed in his ears. It roused him from his sleep, if could even be called that. It was a drug induced sleep that had sucked him into darkness for an entire day. His arms ached terribly from the tubes pulling at the skin as he tossed and turned in bed. He hadn't been able to get comfortable, what with the nightgown feeling stiff against his body and the blankets being too thin to be anything more than a hassle to work around.

Kurt sat up in bed. The analog clock over the door read almost two-thirty in the afternoon. Soon, he would expect Miranda and her team of nurses to parade in with a tray of food for him, or maybe medication. But he didn't care.

He hated this time of afternoon. It was a time when he was never able to fall asleep, and there was nothing to do except stare at the walls. Rachel had left a music player and a stack of CDs from her favorite musicals on the bedside table when she had come earlier this morning. She had said they would help with the boredom.

Her music was what he had been listening to since she left, reveling in the glorious sounds of 'Wicked' and 'Thoroughly Modern Millie', but after three hours of constant music, the batteries had died.

Tearing his eyes away from it, he settled into his pillows.

The room he was currently locked up in was painfully and utterly white. The walls were coated in a healthy shade of the color, and the tile flooring matched it. The thin bedspread was made from a white cloth and the cushions on the chairs were upholstered in it, as well. Breaking out against the painstakingly normalcy, the only splash of color was the bouquet of yellow and red roses that sat in a vase on the bedside table.

Surprisingly, they still retained their vibrant colors and they filled the room with a pleasant scent, almost masking the horrible stench of antiseptics and bleach and old soap. The teddy bear that Brittany had given him sat at the foot of his bed and stared back at him with large glass eyes.

Kurt wrinkled his nose and he felt the backs of his eyes prickle.

There was no possible way to accept anything anymore. The past few days had gone past him a blurry haze and he hardly recalled a thing, and if he did, he instantly second guessed himself on whether it had happened or not. Had he really gone to the movies Friday night? Had he cried over 'The Hunger Games' as he clasped Blaine's hand in the theater the entire film?

Were they really ambushed, and was he actually a victim of abuse?

The tugging pain in his shoulder reminded him that he was. A boy, who had looked no older than him, had driven a knife into his shoulder. Another boy had brought a blade across Blaine's throat, letting him drop to the ground like a ragdoll.

Kurt covered his mouth with his hand. There was no way to accept any of it; it seemed too surreal to happen, like it only occurred in James Patterson or Nicholas Sparks novels. Tales of insanity, and tales of tragic romance.

But it was no use attempting to convince himself that it hadn't happened. He was still tied down in a bed in the third floor of a hospital twenty minutes away from his house, and he sure as hell was aching all over his body. He was still haunted by the deafening silence that hit him head on every time he woke from a fitful sleep.

Blaine was no longer on this earth anymore, and Kurt could not comprehend it. A small part of him did, though, because if Blaine was still here, Kurt would have seen him by now. If he was still here, his mother and sister, Sadie, wouldn't be haunting the fifth floor ICU. If he was still here, funeral arrangements would not have been made already, set for Friday at three in the afternoon.

A knock on the door startled him and he clenched his hands.

Miranda pushed the door open and entered. Behind her were the two other nurses, a platinum blonde, whose name was Cathy, and another brunette named Erin. Miranda set a rectangular tray of food across Kurt's lap gingerly and he glared down angrily at the steaming bowl of tomato soup, slice of bread, and the glass of water. He tried to keep the moisture out of his eyes.

"Not hungry?" Cathy asked as she wrote down the readings on his heart monitor.

"I haven't been hungry," he replied and pushed the tray away from him.

Erin shrugged sadly. "It's either eat the soup or take the nasty stuff in the IV," she said, "and we all know you hate needles. If I were you, I would eat the soup."

"It's not as bad as it seems," Miranda chimed in, leaning against the railing of the bed. She pulled the music player into her lap, along with the CD on the top of the stack. "I like your friends, Kurt. They're very nice to you."

Kurt's lips twitched. "They are."

"Especially Rachel," Cathy said, smiling. "She's quite the talker, isn't she?"

"Always has been, always will be," he said flatly. He watched Miranda leaf through the stack of CDs, reading the backs before setting them off to the side.

Smiling softly, she put all the cases back on the bedside table. "Well, they'll probably be here again this evening. Visiting hours start back up at five and go for an hour or so."

Kurt nodded rigidly. "They probably will."

"Do you have any other visitors?" Erin wondered innocently.

His mind flashed. Who else would want to see him besides the glee club and his parents? He knew no one else from the school, except for the jocks who used to shove him into lockers on a daily basis, and he knew they most certainly wouldn't be paying him a visit. There were the boys at Dalton, but he wasn't sure on them, either; Sebastian was still sour and bitter, even after what had happened to Karofsky and at Regionals, and he probably had brainwashed the rest of the choir not to come, not now. To the funeral, maybe, but not to see him.

"No," Kurt said when he realized he had been silent for an uncomfortably long amount of time. "No one else."

Miranda licked her lips and averted her eyes.

"What is today?" he asked after the girls had worked inaudibly around him for a few minutes.

"The date?" Cathy clarified. She rolled a tray over to the side of the bed, gingerly stretching on a pair of latex gloves and picking up a needle filled with fine, clear liquid. "It's Monday, honey. You know, you get discharged on Thursday. Won't that be great?"

Kurt remained silent, only nodded his head.

Erin smiled in spite of his soundless reply. She took a pair of gloves for herself and kindly pushed up the sleeve of Kurt's night gown. When she pressed a small cloth, dampened with sharp alcohol, against his arm, he didn't flinch.

"Tomorrow, you'll be able to get up and walk around a little," Miranda said. "But right now, we're just going to give you a little something to ease the pain, and we'll get all these tubes out of you. I bet you've been itching for that, haven't you?"

Kurt kept his lips pressed together. He hated the way they talked to him in such sugary voices, as if he were a young child that had no clue about what was going on. He knew everything that was happening, from each blip his monitor made to the big, big picture.

But before he could protest, he felt coolness slipping through his veins, almost like he had downed a glass of ice water, and his vision faded.

* * *

"Oh, come _on, _Victoria," Blaine whined. He cocked his head to the side, exasperated. "You have to open this damn door for me!"

Victoria checked her wrist, faking an invisible watch. "Nope, sorry. I would if I could, but I can't. Visiting hours are over."

"We've got five minutes. Open the door." He rubbed his face.

"Why can't you just… oh, I don't know, walk through it yourself?" she asked. "Because the last time I checked, you were able to walk through doors and walls and who knows what else. That's the perks of being a ghost."

Blaine bristled. "I don't like the feeling I get. It's like I hit my funny bone, only worse."

"That's the best part!" she crowed. "Oh, come on, Blainie. Don't be a wimp."

"Don't call me that," he growled through his teeth.

The blonde twirled a lock of hair around her index finger. "What, Blainie? Why not?"

He fell silent. "My sister used to call me that to get on my nerves." He glared at her from the corner of his eye. "You know, you remind me a lot of her, actually. Snobby, annoying, and girly."

Wrinkling her brows, she glanced down at her shorts and striped sweater. She looked back at him. "I'm not girly. And I'm sure as hell not annoying or snobby!"

"Maybe that's why you're not in heaven right now: because you keep swearing your head off," Blaine grumbled. He crossed his arms over his chest and closely watched the doors.

The lights in Kurt's room were off, the curtains over the windows drawn. It had been this way since the three nurses left around three-thirty, rolling a tray piled with thin, transparent tubes. Blaine didn't want to know what those had been used for, but somehow, he had a good idea.

The time was now nearly five o'clock. It was the start of the visiting hours, and he watching eager to see Kurt. He cast another glare in the direction of the blonde girl, who was staring curiously at her shoes.

"So Kurt is your…" Victoria looked up, her voice faded unsurely. "Brother? Cousin?"

"Boyfriend," Blaine clarified, his voice thick with exhaustion. "He is my boyfriend."

She raised her eyebrows. "You mean, _was _your boyfriend."

Blaine hid his face in his hands. "Please, don't remind me of that."

"Hey, don't get mad at me for it," she defended, spinning in a perfect circle on the tip of her toe, like a ballerina. "You're the new ghost here, and you're supposed to be getting used to the fact that you're _dead_. I'm already peachy keen with my fate."

He gave a soft groan, which was muffled by his hands. "Don't remind me," he repeated harshly.

"You're a ghost, Blaine. You're supposed to be getting used to the idea. You can't just go around thinking you're a living, breathing human, when you're really not." Victoria stopped spinning and looked dizzy for a moment. She shook her head. "Seriously, Blaine. It's been only a few days since you…"

"Were killed," he said colorlessly. "I got slashed in the throat."

She snapped her fingers together in a sense of satisfaction, though she looked shameful immediately after. "Right. Forgot about that."

Hours ago, Blaine had navigated his way from the cemetery he had woken in to the hospital in Lima where Kurt was staying. The cemetery was a small plot of land set away from the city and was filled with the tombstones of many people who had lived in Lima decades ago. What made his mother chose a plot there, where it was basically set in the middle of nowhere, Blaine had no earthly idea. If he was going to be buried, he would've thought Westerville.

Either way, he didn't care. If he was going to be buried anywhere, he would rather be somewhere Kurt could visit without going to too much trouble.

"So you're gay?" Victoria said, interrupting his train of thought.

Blaine waited a moment before answering. "Yes, I am. I told you that Kurt is my boyfriend."

"_Was_," she corrected in a sing-songy voice. She quickly quieted when she saw Blaine's enraged stare. "Sorry."

"Listen, I know this may sound like a really stupid question," he said, letting out a long breath, "but since I'm gay, do I get to go to heaven?"

This made Victoria stop. Her face fell from its snarky smirk to flat, emotionless, void of anything. She straightened her shoulders and tucked her hands in her pockets again.

"I think everyone has the chance to go to heaven, Blaine. Even you. Not that it's an insult to you and your sexuality, but so many people think that gay people are the worst thing next to being poor, or something else really awful," she said, using her hands to animate her words. "It doesn't matter who you are. You can be bi, or gay, or straight, and still go to a good place."

Blaine let his eyes fall shut as she continued speaking.

"I mean, screw all those people who say everyone who isn't straight is a horrible person, and that they're going to hell for it," she said and raised her voice. "If you think you're going to heaven, then you're going to heaven. If you think you're going to hell, then Satan will gladly make room for you. Do you get what I'm saying?"

He lifted his head. "Yeah, I do."

A full minute passed before she spoke again.

"So, you and Kurt were pretty serious," she murmured. She approached the windows that looked into Kurt's room and focused on the curtains and the way they hung in a straight sheet down, no details sewn into the bottom.

"I love him," Blaine whispered. He picked at his cuticles and glanced down the hall, waiting for someone to come. He had a feeling the glee club would come again to visit him. If they were going to come, shouldn't they be walking down the corridor right now? The thought made him grow antsy.

"I'm sorry about your loss," Victoria said sincerely, though part of it sounded automatic, flat, like she had said the exact same thing before. She reached up and let her fingers drift against the window pane.

At the end of the hall, the elevator dinged. Alert, Blaine scrambled to see the doors slide open without a sound. He let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding when he saw Rachel and Mercedes file out into the hallway, followed by Quinn, Tina, and Santana.

The sight of them made him open his mouth and take a breath.

"Don't even try, hobbit," Victoria called from behind him. "They're not going to hear you, so what's the use?"

Blaine dropped his shoulders. He wanted to whirl around and glare strongly at her, but he knew it wouldn't be worth it. Instead, he watched the five girls file down the hallway, eerily silent, and walk past him to Kurt's room.

But before he could see Tina reach for the door knob, he felt a great stillness come over him, and he lost his breath. The darkness came again for him, cloaking his vision.

* * *

Kurt had been awake for about an hour when he heard the petite knock on the door. His arms ached from where all the tubes were removed, but he was glad to have them gone and out of his sight. Now he could move around without being tethered to the bed.

He looked to the door when it creaked open and he was not surprised to see Tina peek into the room shyly.

"Hi, Kurt. I hope we're not interrupting anything," she said as she tiptoed into the room. She gave him a small smile and lingered awkwardly by the door.

Quinn was the next to enter, and she led Mercedes and Rachel with her. Santana waltzed in as the last one, alone. She shut the door as quietly as she could behind her.

"Hi, girls. And no, you're not interrupting anything," he greeted quietly. "To what do I owe the pleasure? This is two days in a row."

"Don't start with that, Kurt," Quinn advised strongly as she rolled over to his bedside, resting her hands in her lap. "It's not good to feel so bitter in your circumstances."

"Quinn, don't say that," Rachel hissed, pulling up a chair next to her. "I'm sorry, Kurt. I think everyone's shaken up by this sorrowful turn of events."

He raised an eyebrow and he couldn't keep the bite out of his tone. "You think?"

Tina and Mercedes stayed at the foot of his bed, sharing looks. Both stayed silent.

Kurt clapped his hands after a minute, which made all the girls jump. "So where are the boys? I thought they would be itching to come along."

"They're with Mr. Schue, rehearsing," Mercedes answered, ignoring the sarcastic tone of his voice. "This week, he's having us do a boys versus girls assignment. Instead of following the Rolling Stones assignment like he had originally planned, we all agreed that it was best to change it."

"Change it to what?" Kurt felt himself stiffen and he heard the monitor beside him start. He took a deep breath and the beeping dropped. He didn't want to have to worry the nurses again, especially Miranda.

Tina looked down. "We're singing some of the songs that you and Blaine sung in glee club," she admitted, almost ashamed. "We don't know what the boys are doing, but we're planning a mash up of 'Somewhere Only We Know' and 'I Want To Hold Your Hand.'"

Kurt sat there, motionless, and it was a moment before he could speak. "Thank you, I suppose. That's very thoughtful of you to change lesson plans like that."

"Kurt," Quinn said warningly, "you're being too hard on yourself. You need to kick back and stop beating yourself up for everything. I know none of this was planned, or wanted, but—"

"You think I wanted this to happen?" he said viciously. "You think I planned for Blaine and I to get jumped at the theater? Of course I'm beating myself up for it. If I had suggested we do something else, like go to the park or stay in and do nothing, Blaine wouldn't be gone and I wouldn't be stuck in this damn hospital with a broken heart. You girls wouldn't have to waste your precious time after school to visit me, and you sure wouldn't have to change Mr. Schue's lesson plans." He wavered, eyes prickling.

Rachel bit her lip. "Kurt—"

"I wouldn't have this gash on my shoulder that aches every time I move, and I wouldn't have to attend my boyfriend's funeral at the end of the week, and I wouldn't be a broken mess like this!" By the time he had finished his sentence, he was gasping, pain striking his lungs, and tears were staining his cheeks.

Silently Mercedes plucked the box of tissues from the side table and offered a Kleenex to Kurt, who ripped it from her hands. He dabbed at his eyes uselessly, as there would be more tears, and he brought his knees up to his chest, the sobs wracking his body.

"I hate my life right now," he whimpered around his tissue. "Why didn't they just kill me when they had the chance? They surely had plenty of opportunities to do so."

Tina gave a small intake of breath. "Don't say that, Kurt. Please don't say that."

"What do you want me to say, then?" he snapped at her, and he saw her recoil. "Do you want me to say that I'm glad I made it out alive? To make it sound like I'm a survivor of a vicious attack?"

The room was silent enough to hear the almost inaudible clicks of the air conditioning in the ceiling.

"Well, I'm not," he finished breathlessly. "I won't ever say anything like that. My life is meaningless now that Blaine is gone. Do you hear me? I can't live without Blaine."

Quinn fiddled with her nails, which were painted a dusty pink. "I'm sorry to be such a Debby Downer, but you lived without him once, Kurt. You lived without him for sixteen years of your life. If you can do that, you can rebound and move on. I know you can."

Kurt didn't refrain from letting his jaw drop, taken aback. "How can you—why did you—?"

"Quinn!" Rachel scolded, equally shocked. Her face was blossoming with pink. "Why would you say that?"

The blonde blinked, startled. "All I'm saying is that you should be able to get back on track. I know this is a death, but—"

"But nothing!" Santana quipped, finally speaking for the first time since entering the room. She smacked her hand against Kurt's bedside table, making the water in his glass jump. "There's nothing inexcusable about talking like that! What if you had had a miscarriage when you gave birth to that lizard baby? Would you have been upset? I think so."

"Then I would have been sad," she replied sharply, "but I would've gotten over it eventually."

"But you never personally knew the child for nine months!" the cheerleader protested. "Kurt knew Blaine—hell, we _all _knew Blaine—for months! Don't say that this isn't a time to mourn and be sad, Quinn."

Quinn pulled her eyes away from Kurt, towards the window, before she finally rolled back and quickly left the room. The door shut behind her with a loud slam and Kurt could fell it reverberate in the walls.

"We're sorry about her, Kurt," Mercedes apologized immensely. "We don't know what's gotten into her at all. Really, she wasn't like this on the way here."

Kurt held up a hand, eyes fixed on the door. "It's alright, Mercedes. She obviously has mixed feelings about everything, and I can't blame her for it," he said, voice wavering slightly. He gave a sniff and pressed the tissue to his face again.

"But she has no excuse to present that kind of behavior," Rachel protested hotly.

"She's being a bitch," Tina summed up, looking flustered.

The Asian never uttered a vulgar term, not ever, and this made Kurt smile. It sounded so odd to hear it come from her. She expected Santana to fire that at the blonde, not Tina.

He shrugged, the smile dropping. "She'll be okay. It's Quinn, after all. She'll be back on her feet soon." He paused when the girls went pale. "Metaphorically, I mean."

Rachel licked her lips disapprovingly and took the blonde's seat. For a few minutes, no one spoke, and the girls distracted themselves by glancing around the room, save Santana. She was experimenting with hitting the bedside table to make ripples in the water glass.

"So, I get discharged on Thursday," Kurt sighed when he was sick of hearing the silence—and Santana—pound against his ears.

Mercedes's face lit up. "That's great, Kurt. We're glad to hear that."

He shrugged again. "I suppose. Just in time for Blaine's funeral. It's on Friday."

"Please, Kurt," Santana said, sounding exhausted. She lifted one hand to her head and rubbed her temple.

"What, Santana?" Kurt said, raising his voice. "What are you saying?"

The cheerleader stopped talking and she worried her lower lip.

"Do you like the CDs, Kurt?" Rachel asked suddenly. She nudged Santana aside to gesture to the cases and the music player sitting on the bedside table. It was obvious she was getting antsy from the tension that was strung tightly in the air.

"I haven't been able to listen to them," he said through his teeth, eyes still set on Santana, who was starting to inch towards the door. "The batteries died."

Rachel's eyes widened. "Then I'll have to see about getting you some more."

"Don't bother with it. I'll be out of bed and on my feet soon. I won't need anything to keep me entertained if I'm not in my bed," he said tightly. He saw her expression drop.

She took a shameful step back. "Oh, okay, then."

"I think we need to get going, girls," Mercedes chimed in, to Kurt's great relief. "You know, Kurt needs to get some rest if he's going to get better soon."

"I second that," Santana said as she leaned against the wall by the door. She had her arms crossed over her chest, looking at the clock on the wall, watching the hands move slowly.

Kurt sunk down into his pillows. "Thank you for stopping by, ladies. It means a lot to me to know some people actually care."

Santana physically held herself back from cracking a smart comment and she cast a look at Kurt before disappearing into the hallway. Tina and Mercedes both waved shortly and followed her out, leaving Rachel lingering at his bedside.

"Don't mind them," she whispered and wrapped her fingers around the railing that surrounded the bed. "They're just being a little sensitive about everything. They'll—"

"I think everyone's a little sensitive about everything, Rachel," Kurt said evenly, cutting into her words. "I mean, Santana's being more testy than usual because she has to bring her ass down here to see me, and Quinn's upset because she's _Quinn _and she's still trying to cope with her and her wheelchair, and Tina's just here because she's coming along for the ride."

Rachel's eyes gained a sharp glare. "But Mercedes and I… We care about you, Kurt. We haven't gotten sleep over the past few days and I actually fell asleep during glee club, and—"

Kurt sucked in a breath when his lungs burned. "As much as I appreciate you not sleeping for me, that won't do anything to help the situation. You're only hurting yourself when you don't have to."

"What did I ever do to you, Kurt?" she asked and peeled her hands from the railing. "I thought we were friends, and friends aren't supposed to yell at each other."

"I wasn't yelling at you," he replied in a weak voice. "All I'm saying is that this is my situation, my life, and, most importantly, my boyfriend. Blaine was the one who didn't make it, and I was the closest one to him. This is my situation."

Rachel took a shy step back. "I'll let you get some sleep, Kurt. Maybe after you're rested, you'll be in a better mood," she said somewhat sadly and turned to the door. Halfway out of the room, she looked over her shoulder. "And I'll get your nurse to bring you some batteries for the music player on my way out."

As soon as she closed the door, Kurt removed one of his pillows from behind his head and launched it at the door.


	4. Chapter 4

Hello, readers!

I hope this update finds you all in good company.

Okay, first thing's first: Glee. Oh. My. God. So I had to miss the finale for a band concert last night and I'm glad I did. I recorded it and watched it today and I cried. For those who haven't seen it yet, I won't say anything major, but let me just say: What the hell is wrong with Ryan Murphy? He builds up everything and then bulldozes it to the ground, crushing our feels and everything. Ugh, I mean seriously. I can't believe it ended how it did.

At least there will be a fourth season to show what happens.

Good lord.

Anyway, rant over. Happy final exam week for me and happy early last week of school! In five days, I will no longer be a sophomore! Finally.

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, but if I did, I would make it so that certain people got happy acceptance letters and certain people didn't break off things and certain people didn't drive other certain people to the train station for a teary last scene. Goodness.

* * *

**Chapter 4**

* * *

On Tuesday, the third day of his hospitalization, Kurt was able to stand and walk around.

If he could.

"Kurt, are you sure you can stand?" Carole asked, sitting in a chair by his bedside.

"I'm fine, Carole. It's my shoulder that hurts more than anything, not my legs," Kurt replied. He swung his feet over the side of the bed and let them dangle freely.

He hadn't been tethered down by multiple tubes that connected him to machines until now, and so far, he was enjoying it. The tubes had given him piercing pain if he tried to sit up. Now, he wasn't held back by them.

Carole perched on the edge of her chair, worry covering her face. She had stayed the night at the hospital in his room, stretched out along the bench with a pillow the nurses provided. She and Burt were taking turns staying with Kurt overnight, and it had been her turn.

Kurt looked at her without lifting his head. "If it ends up that I am unable to stand, you are free to get me crutches or a wheelchair. Whatever suits you."

She looked like she would laugh, but kept her face flat.

Leaning his weight on his right side, his good side, he pushed himself off the bed and onto his feet. His knees felt wobbly beneath him and he immediately stumbled. Carole was by his side and holding him up with her arm around his waist.

"Thanks," he said breathlessly, peeking up at her.

She smiled. "No problem. Just tell me if I'm hurting you at all."

"You're fine," he said and took a step forward, covering her hand with his own. His knees were incredibly unstable under him, as he had not walked in days. He felt like a little child being taught how to walk for the first time.

After a few minutes, Carole let him stand on his own. Kurt smiled a little and limped from his bed to the other side of the small room. His shoulder ached with every step he took and he gritted his teeth, wrinkling his nose. Every time he moved he could feel the material of the bandage rub against his nightgown.

The door opened and a chirpy voice, one he had gotten used to over the past few days, said, "Looks like you're up and walking, Kurt. But I'm going to have to rain on your parade: it's time for breakfast."

Kurt turned to see Miranda in the doorway, a tray of food in her hands. She entered and closed the door behind her. She placed the tray on the foot of the bed, filled with a glass of orange juice, a bowl of plain cereal, and a small container of yogurt.

"I'm not hungry," Kurt said, eyeing the food skeptically.

"Don't go anorexic on us, honey," Miranda said pointedly as she checked a few of the monitors. "We have a wing here specifically for that, and I don't want to see you down there. Plus, I don't think you could handle it. Everyone down there screams a lot."

Shudders ran up Kurt's spine and he limped back to the bed, sitting down and curling his legs under him. Carole pushed the tray towards him encouragingly. He shook his head.

"So, if I can walk now," he said quietly, ignoring the food, "does this mean I get to wear my own clothes again?"

Carole perked and cast a look to Miranda, who looked thoughtful.

"I don't see why not. Those gowns are pretty uncomfortable," she said.

"I can go home and get some of your clothes, dear," Carole offered and stood up, collecting her jacket and her purse. She paused and looked to Miranda again. "I can do that, can't I?"

"Get clothes for him? Of course."

She nodded and pulled her jacket on. "I'll only be gone for half an hour, Kurt. Do you need anything else while I'm there?"

Kurt nibbled on his lower lip. "I'd like to have my phone, if that's doable."

Miranda gave a short cough. "Uh, I'm sorry, Kurt. Your phone had to be taken up as evidence for the police," she murmured.

"Oh. That's fine." He nodded once.

"What clothes do you want me to bring?" Carole asked as she fished her keys from her purse, her hands shaking. She looked physically tired, with purple smudges under her eyes and her skin taking on a pale glow.

He shrugged his good shoulder. "Just a pair of jeans and whatever shirt you can find, and some shoes. I'm not very picky at this point."

Carole came over to his bed and kissed his forehead tenderly. "Alright, sweetie. I'll be back soon," she said, and she was out the door, heels clicking against the tile flooring.

Miranda stared at the door, even after Carole had left, and then she indicated the tray. "You should eat something, Kurt."

"I'm not hungry yet," he replied and pulled a pillow into his lap.

"Remember what I said about the anorexic wing. They're all screamers down there," she said. She pushed the tray towards him to sit down on the bed. "You've gotta eat sometime, Kurt. And this hospital doesn't allow outside food, so you can't have your daily dose of Nutella." She grinned.

Kurt couldn't help but smile a little. "Actually, I don't like Nutella. It tastes weird."

She sighed disappointedly. "What am I going to do with you, Kurt?"

"You could let me get up and walk around some more?"

Miranda contemplated this, and she finally nodded. "Okay. Here's the deal. I'll let you walk. But you have to walk down to the cafeteria with me, eat the breakfast I prepared for you, and then you walk all the way back up here."

"I might agree to that deal," Kurt said and stretched his legs out in front of him, "as long as you help me stand up first."

"Of course," she laughed, and helped him to his feet.

Kurt was able to push himself up and swing his legs over the side of the bed, though he set most of its weight on his right side because his shoulder was aching. With Miranda holding his good elbow, they walked down the hall. Well, she walked and he performed more of a limp.

They entered the cafeteria on the first floor ten minutes later, and Kurt was overwhelmed with the scent of warm bread and a hint of metal. He wrinkled his nose at the smell, but Miranda simply giggled and led him into the room.

The cafeteria was a low-ceilinged room with white tile floors and white painted walls. Ten long tables were arranged in the room, eight of them in a line and the other two backed against the windows that looked out over the parking lot. Two food bars were set up adjacently to the eight tables.

"Where do you want to sit?" she asked, holding on to his elbow.

Kurt raised his good shoulder as he scanned the tables. Not many people were in the cafeteria, but the ones who were sat in small clusters. An elderly couple was picking at trays of vegetables and Jell-O by the windows; a man connected to an oxygen tank was being helped by another nurse one table from the couple; a small boy with a bandana over his head was laughing, sipping milk through a straw and sitting next to what looked like his mother.

Turning his eyes forward, Kurt swallowed, hard, and told Miranda to pick a spot for him.

They ended up sitting down at the end of the table where the elderly couple sat. Kurt stirred his cereal around for a moment, listening to the sounds around him, from silverware clinking against the edges of bowls to the hum of the air conditioning overhead.

"Do you want anything else to eat?" Miranda asked, her eyes sweeping the room.

"I haven't even finished my cereal yet," Kurt murmured and looked down at it sadly.

"I'm going to get some toast for myself. If you need me, just shout." She stood up despite him and left the table.

Sighing, Kurt was faced with the silence, though he could hear the soft mumbles of the elderly couple that sat at the end of his table. Kurt busied himself with taking a long sip of his orange juice, which tasted too sweet. When he set it down on his tray, something thwacked against the table leg and made it shake. Frightened, Kurt snapped his head up.

A boy about his age with curly red hair was standing by his table. He balanced a food tray in one hand and gripped a cane in the other. With his cane, he gave the table leg another whack and Kurt squeaked.

"Is anyone sitting at this table?" the boy asked, somewhat loudly. He turned his head to the right, then the left.

"Yes," Kurt said. "I'm right here."

He shook his head as if offended. "Well, excuse me. You know, there's no reason to be rude to some people."

Kurt narrowed his eyes at him, confused, when Miranda came back to the table. She set down a plate piled with three slices of toast and small packets of grape jelly and sat down beside Kurt. Pulling the crust off one slice, she looked up at the redhead.

"Hey, Ethan. I see you're getting used to your cane," she said casually around a mouthful of bread.

The redhead, whose name was Ethan, turned his head in the direction of Miranda, but seemed to look everywhere but her. "Yeah, I am. It sucks. Now, be a dear, Miranda, and grab my tray. I don't want it to fall out of my hand while I'm trying to sit down."

Miranda leaned across the table and took the tray from the boy, setting it down and then sitting back in her seat. Ethan bumped the table again with his cane before awkwardly clambering into a chair. Seeming content with himself, he let the cane dangle from a bracelet that wrapped around his wrist.

"So, would you mind telling me who this jerk is?" he demanded and searched blindly for the utensils that sat on his tray; he accidentally dipped the side of his hand in pudding and Miranda reached to wipe it off with a napkin. She pressed the spoon into Ethan's hand.

"Jerk?" Miranda repeated.

"There's a guy sitting at this table who was being really rude to me a minute ago," Ethan clarified with the nod of his head. "Thanks. I hate pudding. I don't even know why I got it."

Miranda glanced at Kurt, amused. "This is Kurt. He's on my list."

"List?" Kurt squeaked.

"Relax. I mean my list of patients, not my hit list." She smiled kindly at him. "You know, Ethan's on my list of patients. I see him before I see you every morning."

The redhead nodded again and he reached up carefully to push hair behind his ears. "And I'll probably still be on that damn list for another six weeks. That's how long the recovery is, isn't it? Six weeks?"

Miranda nodded, but looked like she caught herself. "Yes."

"Recovery from what?" Kurt blurted. As soon as he said it, he wished he could withdraw it.

Ethan visibly froze. He raised the cane up in the air. "Why do you think I use this cane?" he asked, almost to himself. "It's because I need it to _see. _I bet you don't have to deal with that, do you? You probably have twenty-twenty vision, don't you?"

"He suffered from eye cancer and he had surgery last week. He's blind now," Miranda whispered to Kurt.

Kurt widened his eyes. "I swear, I didn't know—"

"That's what they all say," Ethan snapped solemnly and lowered his cane. He made a move with his spoon, but missed the pudding by a long shot and hit the table. "But I'm getting used to it. I could probably be the next Helen Keller if I tried."

"I don't think anyone else could be Helen Keller besides Helen Keller, Ethan," Miranda said gently.

"Well, she's dead, so it's time for a new one."

"And Helen Keller's a girl."

He paused. "I know. Who in the right mind would name their boy Helen?"

Kurt stifled a laugh and covered his mouth. He glanced at Miranda, who just sighed and shook her head.

"Ethan, you're so funny. Please, never change," she said. She reached over almost absently and popped open the milk carton that sat on the redhead's tray. "Do you need help?"

"I'm fine," he said with the wave of his spoon. He fumbled a few times before successfully sticking a spoonful of pudding in his mouth. "So, Kurt. What are you in for? Prostate cancer?"

Miranda flushed. "Ethan!"

"What? I'm just asking? He got to ask why I'm fucking blind."

"It's alright," Kurt said softly. He cleared his throat awkwardly and folded his hands on the table. "My boyfriend and I were attacked last week, and I got seriously injured."

Ethan set down his spoon and he pursed his thin lips. His flaming hair covered his eyes, barely; it slanted over the tops of his eyes and curled slightly at the ends, shiny and red. "Really. Where's your boyfriend?"

"He didn't make it," Kurt choked. The words felt constricting in his throat, almost sour and poisonous, and he took a much-needed breath.

He looked crestfallen. "Oh. I'm sorry."

Kurt didn't say anything more. He stuffed another spoonful of cereal in his mouth to avoid talking. Ethan and Miranda picked up a conversation, which dealt with Ethan's surgery and getting used to the cane.

"It sucks, but I heard there are some video games out there that use voice recognition," Ethan was saying excitedly. He had slowly pushed his food away and was now talking with his hands, his cane bumping against the table every so often.

Kurt rested his elbows on the table as they talked, and he looked around. The cafeteria had emptied a little since they came in and a woman with a hairnet was wiping down a table. Kurt looked over at the doors longingly.

"Well, it looks like Kurt is getting a little bored with our topic," Miranda teased and nudged him with her elbow. Ethan snickered.

"What were you talking about?" he asked, a little dazed.

"Tampons," Ethan said flatly. "You know, Kurt, I wish I could see your face so I would know what kind of glare you're giving me."

Miranda laughed a little, though quickly quieted. "Finish eating, Ethan. I don't want to see you down in the anorexic wing just because you are so dependent on sight that you can't get food to your mouth. Come on, Kurt. Your mom's probably back by now."

Collecting his tray, Kurt pushed his chair in. "It was, um, nice to meet you, Ethan."

He raised his red head. "Nice to meet you, too, Kurt. Maybe we'll see each other again before you get discharged. Or maybe you'll just see me, because, you know…" He gestured instinctively to his face. "So yeah."

"So yeah," Kurt agreed. He allowed himself to be led away by Miranda, leaving the boy at the table, alone.

* * *

"Do I end up here every time I disappear?"

Victoria glanced over at him, squinting through the sunlight. "Wow, that's really deep. Are you sure you didn't write poetry when you were alive? You've definitely got the rhyming thing going on."

Blaine lifted his head from the grass and stared at her. "Yes, I'm sure. And I'm only asking. Every time that… darkness thing comes for me, I wake up here, in the cemetery. What's the deal?"

"I dunno," she said and sat down in the grass in front of him. Her blonde hair swept in front of her face and she pushed it over her shoulder.

"What happens when you go into the darkness?"

She shrugged. "I don't go that often anymore. It's like this sleep thing, and most newbies get it _a lot_. Like, a lot, a lot."

"Why?"

"You have a lot of questions, don't you?" Victoria peeked up at him with a grin.

Blaine smiled a little. "I guess I do. But I'm curious, that's all."

"And I may have answers," she replied and curled her legs to her chest. "Newbies, such as yourself, need energy. You don't know how to save energy, so you fall into this little sleep thing that even I don't understand. You're like a phone charging. Once you have enough energy, you come back."

Blaine tilted his head. "That's weird."

"That may be weird, but that's the way it goes."

"Isn't there an instruction manual for this kind of stuff?" he asked lamely.

Victoria let out a laugh and stood up, brushing herself off, though she didn't need to. "People wish for instruction manuals on everything: dancing, kids, women, life. If there's not one for any of those, I doubt there would be one for surviving the afterlife."

"Can't you let a guy dream for once?" he whined. He turned over on his side and buried his face in his arms.

"What's the big deal? You're acting like more of a Grumpy Gus than usual," she said, tone dropping to an even level. "What's up?"

"The sky. That's up."

She glared at him, her eyes glowing like fire. "Blaine, don't make me hit you, because I will do it. I will hit you in the face, and it will hurt like a bitch."

"I don't care. You can hit me all you want," Blaine mumbled. He feebly stood up and stuffed his hands in his pockets, walking away from her. "You can hit me with a sledgehammer and it still won't hurt as much as…" He paused, searching for words. "As not being able to be with Kurt."

Victoria nodded tediously in understanding and got to her feet. She followed him through a maze of headstones, keeping a safe distance. "I think it's time to play Dr. Victoria. Now, please state your name and age for the lovely folks back home."

He whipped around, furious. "I'm serious."

"So am I," she stated and walked right up to him, almost face to face.

It was enough to feel the scorching heat of her glare, and then Blaine backed off, running a hand through his hair.

"Let's start," she said, doing a mediocre job at hiding the happiness that threaded through her voice. "So, your name is…?"

"Blaine," he huffed.

"Blaine what?"

"Victoria!"

"Blaine Victoria?" She looked curious and tapped her chin. "Interesting name, I might say. But continue on, Mr. Blaine Victoria."

Rolling his eyes, Blaine resumed walking and he paced to the wrought iron fence that surrounded the plot. He reached out to hopefully touch it, and wasn't surprised when his fingers slipped right through. He followed it.

"So, Blaine Victoria," she went on, a few feet behind him. "How old are you?"

"I'm seventeen," he mumbled.

"Birthday?"

He waited, deciding it wasn't worth it to refuse answering her questions. "February the fifth," he said, exhaling.

Victoria hummed pleasantly to herself. "Okay, Mr. Blaine Victoria, who is seventeen years old, what school did you attend before the Grim Reaper graciously swept you off your feet?"

"I hate you so much right now," he called over his shoulder. She giggled in reply. "I went to McKinley High School in Lima."

"Previously, you mentioned that you moved here from another city. What is the name of that city, and why did you initiate the move?" she asked, using a voice that kept its girlish tone, yet was serious and flat at the same time.

"Westerville. Two hours south of here. I moved because of my boyfriend, Kurt," he reported flatly. He reached the corner of the plot and turned to follow it.

Victoria made another humming noise again. "Aw, you must've really loved this Kurt enough to move. I mean, that involves buying a new house and changing schools and all that crap. Was it worth it?"

Blaine turned on his heel to face her. His head pounded and he stared at her. Then he dropped his shoulders. "It's always worth it, if it's for Kurt."

"And who is this Kurt? Tell us about him." A smile played on her lips.

"Kurt is… amazing," he said, and started walking again. He stuffed his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. "Kurt is beautiful. His eyes are this color I can never put a name with, this sort of gray-blue, and his hair is always perfect, no matter what, even if he's gone through a tornado. He has the best fashion sense of anyone I've ever met, and he sings better than an angel. He's just perfect."

"Now we're getting somewhere." Victoria smiled and clasped her hands behind her back, talking more and more as the sun passed over the sky.

* * *

After breakfast, Carole and Burt were waiting in Kurt's room for him. Carole had a stack of clothes sitting on her lap and had him change into a pair of jeans, a striped shirt, and clean socks. It felt nice to be wearing his own clothes again, even if they were a little loose in some places from him losing weight.

His parents stayed with him for a few hours, talking to him and watching random shows that were playing on the television that was hanging on the wall. Carole had also brought him the month's edition of a fashion magazine he subscribed to, as well as a few books from his desk to read.

Miranda and her team of nurses popped in and out of the room every so often to check on him, to make sure the machines were running properly, and to give him a dose of medicine. Sometimes they stayed for a few minutes more to start up a conversation with Carole.

After three hours, Kurt went back down to the cafeteria for lunch with Miranda at his side. He stomached a glass of water and a hamburger, though he only ate the bun. The medicine he was given afterward had upsetting side effects, including stomach aches, a dry mouth, and a pounding headache.

When he returned to his room half an hour later, he immediately retched into the plastic basin that was stored in the bathroom. Miranda gave him a few painkillers to ease the headache and a glass of ginger ale to calm his stomach, but it only made him heave again. That was when Carole and Burt decided to leave, telling him they would visit later.

Miranda left him to rest around one, and he fell asleep until four, when he woke up to the dull throb in his shoulder that had been bothering him insistently. Deciding he couldn't sleep, he reached for the music player that sat on his night table and plugged in the headphones. Miranda had put new batteries in it earlier that morning and got rid of the old ones. He thumbed through the CDs that Rachel had brought with the player and finally decided on the 'Wicked' soundtrack.

It was around five when there was a knock on the door that made Kurt pull his headphones off. When he did, the room seemed incredibly silent, as he had had music playing for the last hour.

Miranda popped her head through the door. "Kurt? There a few boys here who would like to see you. Are you feeling well enough to see them?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Let them in," he said as he settled himself against the mound of pillows behind him.

All he would have to endure was an hour of Finn and the other boys from the glee club, and then he could finally dose himself with meds and get to sleep, although he'd been asleep for most of the day.

The murmur of unfamiliar voices made him turn. Instead of Finn lumbering in the doorway, he saw a cluster of navy and red uniforms and he instantly bolted upright. Sebastian Smythe carefully paced into the room, a large bouquet of purple flowers wrapped in his hands. Behind him trailed Wes, David, and the rest of the Warblers, all looking grave and pale in the face.

Kurt narrowed his eyes to slits and waited until the door was shut to speak. "You are not the boys I was expecting."

Sebastian, who hid a quick smile, cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I know you probably don't want us here, Kurt, but we felt the need to come. May we sit down?"

"You may," he allowed and he nibbled idly on one of his nails until it was a stub. The boys searched around the room for chairs and gathered them around the bed. Minutes later, they were parked in seats surrounding Kurt.

Sebastian was the only one standing and he idled awkwardly by the night table, his fingers tightly clasped around the flowers as if they were his only life preservers. For once, he looked out of place, weak.

"Where should I put these?" he asked softly.

Kurt reached out to him with both hands. "I'll take them. Thank you for the thought, Sebastian."

The taller boy flashed a small, tired smile, though it disappeared as quickly as it came. He braced his hands against the back of Wes' chair.

"Why are you here?" Kurt asked, his eyes sweeping the boys' faces. Now that he was not attached to the machines with miles of tubing, he was able to sit in the center of the bed, legs curled under him and the flowers across his lap. He saw the boys, many of them familiar, glance around, unknowingly.

"What?" he asked.

"Why wouldn't we be here?" Wes said in an unusually flat tone. "We loved Blaine like he was our brother, and we love you, even considering the short time you were with us at Dalton. It's the least we could do, Kurt."

The others nodded their heads appreciatively.

"And," Sebastian sighed, "we would like to ask something of you. We know you've been through a terrible time the past few days and that we shouldn't be asking you for favors, but this would really mean the world to us. To all of us."

"Go on," Kurt said warily.

"We would like to perform at Blaine's funeral on Friday, if that's alright with you."

He pursed his lips into a flat line. "And why would you like to do that?"

David gave a short sigh. "This is Blaine we're talking about, Kurt. He was our _best friend_, and you're denying us the chance to sing at his own funeral?"

"I'm not denying it," Kurt replied briskly.

"But you're hesitating," Wes pointed out. "Come on, Kurt. Please, let us do this. He was… really close to us. We were family."

Kurt chewed on his lip for a moment. "I'm not saying no," he said quickly.

"But…?" Sebastian interjected.

"But a funeral is more of a mourning event, not a singing one," he finished, exhaling. "I don't know if that would really be appropriate for it."

Wes slumped in his chair. "Kurt, if you let us do this, we promise not to sing, like, Elvis Costello's 'It Was an Accident.' Nothing corny or offensive."

"Actually, we were sort of already planning it on the way here, just in case you'd say yes," one of the boys in the back said shyly.

The corner of Kurt's lips turned up a little, but dropped back down. "What were you planning?"

"That would ruin the surprise, wouldn't it?" Sebastian said.

"I don't want it to be a surprise." He glared up at the other boy. "I want to know exactly what song I'll be crying during, so I know what I'll miss out on."

A delighted look crossed his face. "The Backstreet Boys. I hope that's not too offensive."

Kurt remained silent. He turned the bouquet over in his hands and heard the cellophane wrapping crinkle noisily. A ribbon was wrapped tightly around the center, a small card dangling from it. He looked up at Sebastian.

"That's fine," he said, trying to keep his voice from wavering. "That's fine. Just don't be late to the ceremony, or you won't be able to sing."

He told the boys the specifics—that it would take place at a small church near the cemetery where Blaine was to be buried, what time it would start, and other details. He had to stop and start several times, as the words tasted awful in his mouth.

"Thank you, Kurt," Sebastian said as they stood up to leave. "It really means the world to us to have you let us do this."

Kurt simply nodded.

Sebastian led the way out of the room, but Wes and David hung back, remaining in their chairs. The door shut behind the Warblers and the silence was deafening, except when it was broken by the click of the air conditioning turning on.

"Aren't you going to miss your ride home?" Kurt asked, voice cracking. "I mean, it would kill your feet to walk two hours back home."

"It doesn't seem possible," Wes mumbled under his breath. "There is no possible way that Blaine can be gone right now."

Kurt sunk back into his pillows and clutched the flowers to his chest, despite the fact that he would crush them. "I know."

"He was our best friend," David said, his voice thick and heavy; he sounded close to tears. "We don't know what to do without him anymore, Kurt. He's not—I mean, it was heartbreaking to see him transfer to McKinley with you. We thought we would never see him again."

Wes nodded. "We thought he would be too busy sucking face with you and singing in glee club to come visit us anymore," he said. He seemed to shrink in on himself, slumping in his chair and leaning his chin in his hand. "But now, he's really gone. We can never see him again."

"You know that we saved his music folio? The one he used in rehearsal?" David said. "It's sitting in the bookshelf in our choir room right now. We couldn't bear to get rid of it when he left for McKinley, and now we can't even look at it." He covered his mouth with his hand.

Kurt pinched his lips together and reached for the tissue box that sat on the night table. He pulled a handful for himself, as his eyes were prickling, and he extended it to the two boys. They took a few with silent nods.

Wes was the first to start sobbing, great cries that shook his shoulders. He tried to talk. "He was our best friend for three years. Three years."

"More than three years," David said, his words muffled by a tissue.

"More than three years," he repeated. "And… we were all attached at the hip. We went through everything together: exams, choir competitions, Call of Duty marathons."

David coughed. "We just—"

"We did everything," Wes concluded when David broke off. His eyes were starting to get red and they welled with tears; he hastily dabbed at them. He threw his hands over his head weakly. "Do you know what we did when we left the hospital Saturday morning?"

Kurt stared, quiet.

"We had to have Sadie take us back to Westerville because both of us couldn't drive," David said. "I couldn't even pick up the keys to my car without my hand shaking like it was going to explode, let alone drive it all the way back home."

"And I probably wouldn't have been able to get out of the parking lot without hitting a tree," Wes added.

"How did you get your car back?" Kurt's voice rose a little as he spoke, and his breathing hitched.

Wes swallowed like he was swallowing over a clump of ice. "Sebastian took him back up here Sunday morning."

Kurt licked his lips. His vision slowly began to blur and he dabbed at his eyes, and everything appeared to be underwater. He didn't have to be able to see clearly to know that his friend's faces were distorted, pink, tissues constantly pressed to their eyes.

The three of them sat in an almost silent state, which was interrupted by sniffs and jagged sobs.

"I don't know what to do anymore, Kurt," Wes whispered after a few minutes. He lowered his hands from his face. "We don't know what to do. You can't just get over your best friend's d-death so easily."

"And you can't get over your boyfriend's death so easily, either," Kurt muttered bitterly. He set the flowers gently on the bed next to him and wiped his eyes with his hands. Even after he did that, the tears started to drip down his cheeks. "I swear, he is the only one I'll ever love."

David stood up abruptly. "I'm sorry, Kurt. We're wasting your time. You should be resting."

"You're fine," Kurt said automatically.

"No, no, David's right," Wes persisted, getting to his feet. He stuffed his tissues in the pockets of his slacks and blinked to clear away the tears. "We should probably be getting back home. I'm sure Sebastian and the rest won't wait all day for us."

Kurt tilted his head. "They're waiting?"

David sighed and followed Wes to the door. "They're our friends. They'll wait for us."

"Even Sebastian," Wes muttered, "even if he does act like a snarky meerkat most of the time." He took an even breath, then looked up at Kurt and smiled. "We'll be there on Friday. Thank you, Kurt."

"Get well soon," David added cheesy as he pulled a grin on his face and followed Wes out of the room.

As soon as they disappeared and the sounds of their footsteps had gone as well, Kurt buried his face in a pillow and cried until six o'clock, when Miranda came to get him for dinner.

* * *

"I wonder if this was a bad idea."

"You started it."

"Doesn't that mean I have to finish it?"

"Yes, but—"

Victoria waved widely to an invisible audience, one neither of them could see. "Thanks for watching, everyone! I hope you'll join me in the next episode of Dr. Victoria! Drive safe!"

Blaine put his head in his hands, chuckling. "I'm wondering how I ever got a guardian like you."

"I hope that's a compliment, buddy," she said and crossed her legs, Indian style. She leaned against the large oak tree that was in the corner of the cemetery, and had teased Blaine for trying the same thing and falling through it earlier.

"Don't worry. It is."

"Okay. Just had to make sure."

Blaine raised his eyebrows and stared at her with a crazy expression. "Please tell me that this has concluded the end of the questioning."

"I kind of just sent away our audience, so yes, the questioning portion has ended," she informed him with a nod.

He didn't say anything back, just stared at the clouds that were swirling in the sky, mixed with the oranges and reds and blues, almost like a painting.

"I would like to apologize for what you've been through the past couple of days," Victoria said and clasped her hands together. "It's not easy being murdered by a band of idiots who can't understand the true concept of love."

"They were probably drunk, too."

"Or the limit of alcohol."

Blaine shrugged his shoulders halfheartedly.

The sun was now slipping below the horizon, streaks of several colors painting the sky. The entire day had gone by in minutes, it seemed. A slight breeze rustled through the grass and shook the branches of the large tree.

Blaine had not gone to visit Kurt, and it pained him. Even if he had gone to the hospital, it would've pained him, because he couldn't sit down and outright talk to the other boy. He couldn't kiss Kurt, or hold his hand, or stroke his cheek.

Now, with a gasp, Blaine buried his head in his hands and his shoulders shook.

Victoria watched him mumble to himself for one minute, two, three, four, until it became an hour, and the sun was below the horizon. She calmly waited until he spread out on his back in the grass, his chest rising and falling with great breaths, and did not speak.

"Reality hurts, doesn't it?" she asked timidly.

"If I could feel pain, then yes, I would say it hurts, but I can't feel anything anymore. That's the worst part. I mean, you can hit me, and I'll feel that, but no one can touch me," he said mockingly. He threw an arm over his face. "I can't go up to my sister or my mom and hug them, because I'm nothing."

Victoria sat there in silence.

"God, I can't believe anything anymore. Do you know how bad it feels to never be able to communicate with anyone ever again?" He picked up his head to stare at her.

She traced a circle in the dirt around the base of the tree with her finger and she hummed in reply. "My parents. I haven't been able to talk to them for five years."

"Oh, god, my mom," Blaine gasped. "I'm never going to talk to my mom again, or Sadie." He rolled onto his side. "And Wes and David. I'll never talk to them again, either. They're going to finish out junior year without me. They'll finish out _high school _without me."

"I think everything's going to finish out something without you," Victoria murmured. "All my friends finished high school without me, and I still get sick from that, even though that was all five years ago. This will never go away."

He rolled onto his stomach and rested his chin on his arms. "You've got to teach me."

"Teach you what?" Her voice sharpened suspiciously.

"Teach me how to touch things, like you do," he clarified and pushed himself to his knees. "You said a while ago that it takes practice and time and determination, and blah, blah, blah." He met her eyes. "I want to learn how to do all that stuff."

Victoria clambered swiftly to her feet and brushed off her shorts, either out of habit or because she wanted to. "I don't know."

"Come on. Maybe it'll help me in my quest thing—"

"Assignment."

"My assignment. Maybe it'll help me in my assignment," he corrected. "You said I did have an assignment that I would have to fulfill in order to get to heaven, right? Didn't you?"

She held up a hand. "Whoa, there, Curly. Yes, I did say all those things. But this kind of stuff takes time, Blaine. I've only just mastered turning my body to a solid object. I'm not a pro."

"But you're better than me," Blaine said adamantly. "And I don't care how long it takes I want to be able to communicate with Kurt, and my friends, and my mom and my sister."

Victoria dropped her head in defeat. "Fine. But we're starting tomorrow!"

"I would hug you right now, but I can't because I don't know if that's possible for—"

"Because of your incessant talking, I think I might postpone teaching you."

Blaine merely smiled at her.

* * *

Reviews would be lovely.


	5. Chapter 5

Hello, readers.

I hope this update finds you all well. Wow, this is weird. Updating both my stories in the same week. I usually never do that. Oh, well. Expect another update for WaODM by at least Monday, at the latest.

In brand new news:

- My boredom has led me on a writing streak. Currently, I have 5 stories being written, all at the same time. I've got this one, WaODM, the sequel to WaODM (squeal), a new one that takes place at Dalton but without Kurt and Blaine, and a future-ish fic that includes Kurt and Blaine. Well, okay then. Let's hope I have enough time to write this summer...

- My boredom has also led me to paint my nails to look like watermelons and to check out an insane amount of books from my local library (cough12cough), but who's counting anyway?

Anyway, thank you for those who have read this story and have reviewed it! :)

* * *

**Chapter 5**

* * *

"Okay, now you must concentrate your energy into one place at one time. Feel the energy run down your arms and into your hands and into your fingers. _Be _the energy. You _are _the energy. Can you dig it?"

Blaine opened one eye and parted his lips to reply.

"Eyes shut!" the blonde ordered.

He snapped them shut immediately. "Um, Victoria?"

"Yes?"

"How does yoga help my hands become solid?"

For the last ten minutes, he had stiffly assumed an odd yoga position, with his arms extended over his head and palms flat together, and balancing on one leg. She mirrored him and looked easy, at peace.

"It doesn't," she replied a few minutes later and unwound herself from the pose. "It just gives me something to do."

Blaine dropped his arms, exasperated. "You're supposed to be teaching me how to solidize myself!"

"Solidize?" she questioned.

"I made it up," he said quickly. "Now teach me. I don't want to take five years to figure out what I'm doing."

Victoria glared sharply at him. "And I thought I was the one around here with the big ego," she grumbled. "Okay, Mr. Wise Crack. If you want to learn so bad, put out your hand."

Blaine complied and put out his hand, palm down.

"Now, imagine that you are trying to find the pulse you once had," she instructed, eyes shut, and she ignored his glare. "Become aware of the energy you possess at the moment. Feel it pulsing through you like the blood that once flowed through your veins, but isn't there anymore because, by unfortunate events, you are deceased—"

"Would you stop mentioning that?" he snapped.

She opened one glittering eye. "Well, how else are you going to get used to the fact that you're dead?"

"Um, I'm sort of learning how to make my hand turn solid," he said flatly. "I think I wouldn't be doing this if I was alive."

Victoria clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "Good point. So, go back to what I was telling you to do…"

The sun was a ball of pink, sitting on the horizon. The sky was streaked with the pinks and oranges of early morning and the grass was wet with dew. Blaine had woken from the darkness, which he had found himself getting accustomed to each time it overtook him, only half an hour ago, and he had found Victoria hanging upside down from the thickest branch of the oak, waiting for him, waiting to start "teaching."

She was teaching him to control his energy, which seemed a tad cheesy to him, and how to make his hands solid. He hadn't even known ghosts could do such a thing.

But then again, he hadn't known that ghosts existed, either.

"And you said I had the big ego," he muttered. He shut his eyes and pursed his lips, and suddenly he became alert.

A cool tingling sensation started in his shoulder blades, almost like someone was dumping cold water down his back. It flowed up over his shoulders and dipped down his arms, plunging them in ice. His fingers tingled and he couldn't help but open his eyes.

Victoria had stopped talking and she was watching his hand curiously.

"Let me guess. It's supposed to burst into flames," he said dully.

She looked up at him. "You ruined the surprise."

Then something soft, feather light, grazed over his hand and he jumped. His hand looked disfigured, in a sense. The tips of his fingers were the color of flesh instead of the translucent glow he had been accustomed to.

"Holy flip," Victoria breathed. When she caught Blaine's gaze, she said, "What? You said that maybe one of the reasons I wasn't getting into heaven was all my swearing, so I replaced 'fuck' with 'flip.'"

Blaine shook his head and focused on his hand. Hurriedly he reached over and grazed his hand down the trunk of the oak tree. To his delight, he felt the bark, rough and grizzly, rub against his skin.

"I am an amazing teacher!" she cheered with her hands on her hips.

"Maybe I'm just an excellent student," he remarked and leaned his weight against the tree.

The tingling in his hand faded and the icy feeling rushed back up his arms. Before he knew it, he was on the ground, rolling away from the tree. Victoria laughed shrilly.

"Maybe you need to pay attention to where you put your weight," she advised as he clambered to his feet. "You know, you can't keep the energy in your hand for long. Unless you're a pro at it."

"Like you?"

"Aw, shucks. You're making me blush."

Blaine heaved a sigh.

"Don't sigh at me. I'm not the one who can't materialize their hands for more than five seconds," she quipped with a grin.

"That's because you're not teaching me anything!" He threw his hands over his head.

Victoria simply crossed her arms over her chest. "Try it again. And this time, don't fall through the tree."

* * *

The cafeteria was silent enough to hear crickets chirping, or a pin drop. The tables were vacant, except for one, where two boys sat, picking at trays of breakfast. Neither of them was hungry, but it was better than hiding out in their rooms.

Kurt numbly swallowed a sip of milk. "So, what do you like to do?"

Ethan picked up his head. "BS or AS?"

"Both, I guess." He shrugged lightly.

Earlier, the redhead had come up with the terms BS and AS to describe his surgery, BS being before and AS being after. "It's like 'before Christ' and 'after Christ'," Ethan had said, "but without the dying part, thankfully."

Now, Ethan licked his lips and fumbled to rest his elbows on the table; he did so without sticking an elbow in his tray of applesauce. He brought his hand uncertainly up to his face to brush away hair.

"I don't know. BS, I loved playing video games. Like, the ones with the cool graphics, you know?" he said appreciatively. "God, I loved video games back when I could see them. Do you play?"

Kurt shrugged and picked at his food, then caught himself. "Sort of. My brother has a lot of games that he keeps in his room. If he's outrageously bored, he'll ask me to play, and if I'm outrageously bored, I'll actually play."

Ethan chuckled shortly. "You know, after you and I both get discharged, we should hang out some time."

"That'd be nice," he said after a moment. "Can you drive?"

"Hell no. BS, of course I did, but I had to have either my dad or my mom in the car with me at all times," he said. He lifted his hand and his cane bumped against the table, shaking it. He maneuvered it onto his lap. "AS, no way. I'm not even allowed to take the stairs without the entire SWAT team coming to help me."

"Then how do you get here?" Kurt asked. "I mean, every time I see you in here, you're alone. Doesn't someone bring you here?"

He nodded and reached for his bottle of orange juice, which he knocked over with his wrist; Kurt set it upright for him, then unscrewed the cap and pressed it into his hand.

"Thanks," Ethan said, a little sheepish. He took a long drink. "And yeah, Miranda brings me down here. She does it right before she comes to check on you. She's pretty awesome, isn't she?"

Kurt smiled. "Yeah, she is."

"So, enough about me and my sightless self," he concluded, setting his bottle down carefully. "What about you?"

"What about me?" He twirled his plastic fork clumsily between his fingers.

Ethan shrugged. "I don't know. Likes, dislikes. Go."

"I like…" Kurt faded uncertainly. "Okay, that's vague. Choose something else."

"Hobbies, then."

He pinched his lip as he chased his unappealing oatmeal around with his spoon. "I sing in a choir at my high school."

Ethan raised a flaming eyebrow. "Really?"

"Really," he said, and smiled a little at the boy's enthusiasm.

"How high can you sing?"

Kurt wrinkled his nose. "High F, maybe? But that was a long time ago, when I was trying to sing 'Defying Gravity' for my class. Have you heard that song?"

He shook his head no. "You should sing it for me."

"How about no," he said flatly. "For one, we're in the middle of a hospital cafeteria—"

"Where there happens to be basically no one around except us and the food ladies," Ethan interjected.

"—and I don't think my voice is very up to singing right now," Kurt finished. He set his fork down and took another sip of milk. It tasted pasty and it was hard to get down.

Ethan sighed and pointed to his face. "Even though it's basically impossible, this is me rolling my eyes."

Kurt laughed. "You're insane."

"And you need to sing me something," he said. "You've got me intrigued, and now I want to hear you belt out that high F."

Kurt shook his head and pushed his tray away from him; his stomach was slightly uneasy from the medication he'd been taking the last few days. "How about this: I'll sing for you once I'm discharged and when I feel like singing."

Ethan slumped in his chair, but nodded. "I'll be waiting," he said in a vaguely Arnold Schwarzenegger-like accent.

Shaking his head, Kurt stifled a laugh. "Then you might be waiting a long time."

"When do you get discharged?"

"Thursday."

Ethan looked bewildered. "That's tomorrow."

Kurt narrowed his eyes. "Oh."

"Yeah, time goes by pretty quick when you're stuck in the crazy house, doesn't it?" He grinned.

"I suppose it does." Kurt pushed his tray away, his stomach churning uncomfortably.

Ethan pursed his lips and his voice fell instantly flat. "Listen, I'm really sorry about what happened to you. If there's anything I can do to help, or—"

"There's nothing," he said stiffly. He stood up quickly and gathered his half-empty tray, even with the pain in his shoulder excruciating. "I'm sorry, Ethan, but unless you can bring my boyfriend back from the dead, I don't think there's much you can do."

With that, he strode away from the table and dumped his tray in one of the industrial sized garbage bins by the doors. He pushed through the doors and into the hallway, the smells of bleach and chemicals hitting him full on.

The clock on the wall said it was nearly nine o'clock. His dad and Carole said they would visit around eleven, and he wasn't sure if Rachel and the others would come.

Kurt tucked his arms around his waist, careful to not pull on the stitches of the wound in his shoulder, and ambled down the hallway to the elevators. He entered after the doors slid open and hit a button without looking. A minute later, it brought him to the second floor.

Peering out, he saw a nurse pushing an elderly man down the corridor in a wheelchair. No one else was in sight. Not wanting to go back to his room just yet, he ducked back in and faced the panel of buttons, hitting the third one.

Kurt waited patiently as the elevator brought him up to the third floor. It looked almost identical to the second, but there was not a soul he could see. All the rooms had curtains drawn over the windows with the lights off. A chill ripped up his spine and he went up to the fourth floor.

As the doors slid open smoothly in front of him, he bit his lip. He knew that he would be in trouble if he got caught outside of his room past mealtimes, but he just wanted to check this, just one thing.

He stepped out into the hallway and an icy air made the hairs on his arms raise. He started walking in one direction, and his heart pounded with each step. The fourth floor was the floor Blaine was on Friday night. That was all Kurt knew, nothing more. He had no idea what room number it was, and he felt silly walking the halls, alone.

Biting the inside of his cheek, Kurt pressed on, passing dark rooms. A faint, steady beep reached his ears and he tried to ignore it. Eventually, he faced the end of the hallway, with two rooms on either side of him and a storage closet in front of him.

The backs of his eyes prickled and he let his head drop. His breathing became incredibly shallow and before he knew it, he was on his knees, trembling, the tile cool beneath him. He brought his hands up to his face, covering his eyes, and then his skin felt ablaze.

* * *

Heart slamming in his chest, Kurt jolted upright. A sheen of sweat covered his forehead and his hands felt clammy, his lips cracked and dry. Blinking, he adjusted his eyes to the brightness of the room. The first faces he saw were those of his dad and Carole, who were sitting by the door.

"Dad?" he asked, voice cracking.

Burt immediately stood up. "How are you feeling, Kurt?"

"Fine. Why? What happened?" he asked.

"You were found on the fourth floor, almost unconscious," said a girlish voice. Miranda came out of the bathroom, drying a plastic basin with a rag. "One of the nurses on duty found you and we got you back here."

Kurt slumped back against his pillows. "Oh."

"What were you doin' up there, kiddo?" Burt asked, his brows knitted together.

"I-I don't know," he said faintly.

Miranda placed the basin next to him on the bed and kneaded the rag in her hands. "It's because of him, isn't it?"

Kurt shamefully knew who she was referring to. He nodded his head slightly.

"Did I faint?" he asked and pulled his knees up to his chest.

Miranda nodded sadly. "You've been on watch for the last two hours."

"Watch?" His voice gave another crack.

"As in, suicide watch," she said in a near whisper.

Kurt widened his eyes. "I would never do that—!"

"But she said that when all those nurses found you," Burt interjected gruffly, "you were laying on the floor with scratch marks all over your face."

He blinked, furrowing his brows. "But I—"

Miranda gently sat down on the edge of his bed. Her dark hair fell down in front of her eyes and she pushed it back. "When I got to you, the others were trying to keep you from clawing at your face, Kurt. You already had long streaks that you must've dug with your nails, and—" She stopped and turned away.

She gestured to Carole for something, and Carole fled into the bathroom. She came out a moment later, carrying something thin and shiny in her hands. She held it out to Miranda, and the nurse took it with a silent word of thanks.

When she held up the tiny mirror, Kurt gasped.

His pale skin was scarred with jagged scrapes of red, the edges pink and swelling a little. His face burned when he turned his head and he winced. Bringing a hand up to his face, he ran his fingertips over the scrapes that ran vertically down from his eyes to his chin, some streaking from ear to ear to form a nasty crisscrossing pattern.

"I-I didn't do this," he breathed, slowly lowering his hand. "This wasn't me that did this! I wouldn't do this to myself!"

"Then who did, Kurt?" Burt asked, worried.

Kurt pursed his lips together and ignored the burning that arose. "It wasn't me. I don't want to kill myself. It's too selfish."

"We know you feel that way, honey," Carole said lightly, "but we just want to know if you're having trouble understanding what's going on. We know it's really difficult for you, and we're thinking of counseling."

"I don't need counseling. I just need…" He trailed off, turning his head away. "I just want something to eat and time to sleep."

Miranda shook her head. "I don't think it's very smart to give you food. We've given you medicine to help the swelling on your face and for the last two hours, all you've done is puke it right back up," she said grimly.

Kurt felt the heat rise to his cheeks, which made the scratches burn again. "I'll stomach it. I promise."

"I'm not taking any chances," she said. She stood up from the bed and slipped the mirror from his hands. "I'm going to give you another dose of medicine, and we'll see how you sleep. If you're okay by dinnertime, I'll let you eat, okay?"

Kurt nodded numbly and his face burned.

He sat back as she injected clear liquid from a syringe into the crook of his elbow; he was so used to the needles that he didn't flinch. When she placed the needle back on the sterile tray and pushed out of the room, saying she would be right back with cream for his face, he was faced with his dad's stare.

"You've got to believe that I wouldn't consciously do something like this to myself," Kurt said immediately. He restrained himself from letting his fingers drift over the scabs.

Burt shook his head. "How're we supposed to know that?"

"You've been under a lot of pressure lately, Kurt," Carole said almost inaudibly. "We expected this, but we weren't hoping for it."

Kurt stared at them, Burt's eyes hard and Carole's soft with emotion. "I'm so sorry for this."

"We don't want you to apologize for it," Burt said, holding up a hand. "We're just concerned with you and how you're dealing with everything."

"I guess I'm not dealing with it very well, am I?"

"Kurt."

He snapped his head up. "What?"

Carole let out a long, breathy sigh. She sounded pained and she rubbed one of her temples. "We want you to feel better, Kurt."

"I know that," he said. "But I would never intentionally kill myself! If I didn't do it when I was be bullied, what makes you think I'll try it now, when—" His words hitched in his throat and he found himself gasping, tears stinging his eyes.

Burt immediately stood and extended a hand to him, while Carole hit the red button on the wall.

* * *

At four o'clock, Blaine was pacing outside Kurt's room enough to run a rut in the tile. He kept his eyes down, staring at his feet, his hands clasped behind his back. Victoria had materialized her hand enough to lean against the wall.

"Isn't someone going to freak when they see a random hand on the wall?" he asked, tearing his eyes away from the floor to look at her.

She gave a roaring yawn. "Eh, they'll be fine. It's not the weirdest this hospital has seen."

"How do you know what this hospital has seen?"

"This was the hospital I was at when I died," she answered without hesitation.

Blaine pursed his lips. "Oh. I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Victoria waved her fleshy hand at him. "Everyone has to die sometime."

He bit the inside of his cheek. "Something tells me that I wasn't supposed to die just yet. I mean, I'm only seventeen."

She looked offended. "Hey, I'm seventeen, too. Actually, I should be twenty-two and in college right now. Don't be the only one complaining about dying young, buddy."

"Okay, okay," he said and raised his hands in defense.

The soft padding of tissue made him turn around. The nurse that was assigned to Kurt—he could hardly remember her name—was walking slowly down the hall, the paper booties on her feet making soft sounds. She was guiding a redheaded boy down the hall, arms looped, and was talking to him in a voice so quiet Blaine strained to hear.

The nurse and the boy stopped in front of the door directly across the hall from Kurt's room, and she helped him inside.

"What's his deal? He doesn't look…" Blaine looked over his shoulder at Victoria.

She squinted her eyes. "He's blind, I think."

"Oh." He rubbed the back of his neck.

"Yeah. Oh." She looked thoughtful. "And I think your boyfriend has made somewhat of a friend in him."

Blaine stared at her. "Do you stalk this place, or what?"

"Ghostly senses," she beamed happily. "You'll get those later."

"Great. More stuff that I have to deal with," he mumbled, and resumed pacing.

Five minutes later, the nurse emerged from the redhead's room and cut across the hall to Kurt's room. As she pushed open the door, Blaine slipped inside, Victoria on his heels.

Kurt was tucked under four layers of blankets, his skin pale. Scratches covered his face, lacing it with angry red lines. Blaine let his mouth drop open a little, and he approached the bed, looking down at the other boy.

"How're you feeling, Kurt?" the nurse asked.

"Fine," he croaked. "My face still hurts."

She chuckled colorlessly. "I can imagine."

Blaine idled in the room, watching Kurt fidget under the sheets, for almost an hour. Victoria sighed repeatedly behind him, indicating that this wasn't the place she wanted to be, but he didn't care. As long as he could see Kurt, he was fine.

Seeing Kurt tucked under all the blankets, with the marks all over his face, made Blaine want to sob until he didn't have any tears left in him. This boy, the one he loved, was so broken, and Blaine was furious. He was furious at the boys who did this to them, and furious at everyone.

If he had suggested a night in instead of a night out.

If he had taken Kurt to see a later showing of the movie.

If they had stayed in the theater just a bit longer.

Blaine shook his head and looked away.

Twenty minutes later, someone knocked on the door and Blaine wasn't surprised to see the entire glee club to wander in. This time, no one had gifts or candy or flowers. They all simply sat around Kurt's bed and talked to him in low voices; Kurt's replies were in short sentences, no longer than five words.

Blaine lingered by the edge of the bed, running his fingers through the railing that surrounded it. He often caught himself answering the questions that they asked, and Victoria laughed at him. How could he be so stupid? No one would hear him, or see him. He couldn't touch anything or anyone or do anything besides wander and eavesdrop on people's conversations. He was useless.

The sound of short laughter broke his reverie and he found Kurt sitting up, a hand covering his mouth. He was laughing at something Rachel said. Blaine blinked, and found Victoria staring, not at him, but at Rachel.

Around five, the glee club decided to leave. Kurt shakily got to his feet to hug them tightly, holding Finn close to him for a second longer. Blaine was ashamed that he felt jealous of Finn, just because he was able to hug Kurt, and to talk with Kurt, and mostly, because he was alive and Blaine wasn't.

"Who's that?"

Blaine looked up at Victoria. "Who?"

Victoria pointed at the glee club as they filed into the hallway. "The hobbit with the brown hair."

"Her?" Blaine said absently, more concerned with watching Kurt climb back into bed and pull the covers up over his lap. "That's Rachel Berry. She's one of our friends."

"She's interesting."

Blaine turned to her. "You don't know the half of it."

She shook her head. "No, I mean, she is _really _interesting."

"Victoria? Is there something you'd like to tell me?"

The blonde faced him, blinking. "Are you asking me if I'm a lesbian?"

"Not in those exact words, but yes."

"No. I'm not."

"Oh, okay. Just thought now would be the right time to ask," he said, turning his gaze back to Kurt. "What's the big deal with Rachel?"

She shrugged and wandered over to the bench under the windows. She made her fingers materialize enough to push back the curtains a little to peek into the hallway. "Nothing. Hey, do you know this guy?"

"What guy are you talking about?" Blaine furrowed his brows.

Victoria dropped the curtain. "Big guy. Really muscular with broad shoulders. Sort of reminds me of a bear, you know?"

"How old is he?" Blaine asked and scrambled across the room to the window. He tried to swipe the curtains away, but his hand went right through them and a tingling sensation ran up his arm.

"I don't know. He looks like a high school guy. Senior, maybe?"

"Pull the curtain back!" he demanded.

"What's the magic—"

"Now!"

Victoria gave an eyeroll and pushed the fabric away from the window, and Blaine peered through the glass. Eyes widening, he stumbled back, his breath tight in his chest.

"What's with all the freaking out? You're gasping like a fish," Victoria said and pushed the curtain open. She stared pointedly at him.

"He cannot—there is no way he'd—" Blaine sputtered. He held back the urge to lean against the railing around Kurt's bed, knowing it wouldn't support him.

She propped her hands on her hips. "What is wrong with you?"

"Him," Blaine stated plainly and rushed up to the window again. He pointed to the boy pacing down the hallway with a bouquet of flowers in one hand, looking awkward and clumsy.

Dave Karofsky.

"What about him?"

He gaped at her. "He's the guy who made Kurt's life a living hell in high school! What is he doing here?"

"I don't know, but here's a crazy idea: maybe he'd like to pay his respects and wish Kurt on a good recovery?" she guessed.

"No!" Blaine stated firmly. "He was awful to Kurt in high school. Victoria, you've got to do something, anything."

"Like what? I'm not your fairy godmother," Victoria said snippily.

He ran his tongue over the fronts of his teeth anxiously. "I don't know. Something. Punch him in the face for me."

"What?" Victoria repeated. She took a step back from him. "There is no way I'm punching that boy in the face. He's got flowers, Blaine—"

"One punch. That's all I'm asking for. Just punch him once in the face."

She set her jaw and took a step toward him. "I'd like to punch you once in the face."

"Victoria," he persisted as Dave knocked gently on the door. "Please, do something to stop him."

"You couldn't pay me all the money in the world!" she exclaimed and tossed her blonde hair over one shoulder.

"That's because you wouldn't be able to _use _all that money!" Blaine rubbed his face irritably.

She shook her head repeatedly. "Look, Blaine, he's got flowers. He's obviously got the right idea when it comes to—"

"Those flowers could be poisonous, for all we know. They could be Venus Fly Traps, or something," Blaine interjected.

"Venus Fly Traps are harmless. They only hurt flies," Victoria moaned. "Last time I checked, Kurt was _not _a fly. But if there's something you'd like to tell me, go ahead and speak now or forever hold your peace, and all that."

Blaine's heart jumped when Miranda passed him to the door. She opened it and stuck her head out, and Blaine held his breath.

"Oh, hello," Miranda said cheerfully, but with a hint of uneasiness. "Are you here to see Kurt?"

"Yes, I am," came the soft rumbling of Dave's voice.

Blaine turned to glare at the blonde. "I really wish you had done something."

"I can't do everything," she said quietly, a pang of guilt striking her voice.

* * *

The moment Kurt heard the familiar voice of Dave Karofsky, he sat upright in his bed and clutched the covers in his hands. He sat, unmoving, as the bulky boy lumbered into the room, wearing a pair of jeans and a plaid button-down. Miranda gave him an uncertain glance before excusing herself from the room.

"You don't think I scared her off, do you?" Dave joked flatly and gestured to the door with the bouquet of orange flowers in his hands.

Kurt lifted his good shoulder and did not reply.

"Um, may I sit down?" he asked. He rubbed the back of his neck and avoided looking at Kurt.

"Go ahead," Kurt said, and he was frightened to hear his voice come out in a whisper. He shifted and crossed his arms over his chest, refraining the urge to cover his face or scratch the scabs. Miranda had put cream on his skin earlier, but it still felt like nails tearing his face apart.

Dave pulled a chair close to the bed, its feet scraping like nails on a chalkboard against the tile floor. Sitting down, he rested his hands and the flowers in his lap. He looked down at them. "Where do you want me to put these…?"

Kurt stretched out his hands. "I'll take them. Thank you."

After the cellophane wrapping finished crinkling, all was silent for a few minutes.

Then, "It's kind of funny, isn't it?"

Dave looked up, startled. "What?"

"It seems as though the tables are turned," Kurt mused, picking at the ribbon that was wrapped around the middle of the bouquet. "The last time I saw you, you were in the hospital, and now look at me. You're the visitor and I'm the patient."

The corner of his lips twitched. "I guess so. I mean, if you want to look at it that way."

Kurt nodded and swallowed hard. From the corner of his eye he knew Dave was watching him, probably studying the lines that raked jaggedly across his face, wondering what kind of lunatic he was now.

"Why are you here?" Kurt couldn't help but ask.

"Because I think we're sort of friends," he said, "and I would've killed me to not see you." He paused. "I mean, you've been there for me so much in the past, like with my…" Wrinkling his nose, he stopped.

Kurt nodded. "Your attempted suicide."

"I hate those words," Dave muttered, shaking his head once. "But you were there for me, through all of my rough times, and I want to be there for you."

"David—"

"I know you don't like me in that way," he interrupted. "I'm—I'm just saying that I'll be there for you like you were for me. You helped me get out of my—my funk, I guess. I feel better about myself now."

Kurt tilted his head to the side. "Speaking of that, I'm guessing you're a whole new person."

He ducked his head, a faint smile flashing across his face. "Sort of. I'm out of the hospital, obviously, but I'm still on meds to make sure I won't go crazy again," he mumbled.

"I see." Kurt tightened his fingers slightly around the flowers and the cellophane crinkled.

"I, um, heard about what happened. With you and Blaine," Dave said, clearing his throat. "I'm really sorry, Kurt. I know how much he, um, meant to you."

"He was my boyfriend," Kurt said and tried to keep his voice from shaking too much. "He was my boyfriend, and I loved him from the moment we met, and now I'm never going to see him again. So yeah, I guess he meant something to me."

Dave shook his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that."

Kurt rubbed his nose, which burned from the scabs. "Yeah. I know."

"I know you don't want to, um, talk about it anymore," he said gruffly, staring at his hands, "but who did it? I mean, the newspaper said it was a few guys, but were they ever identified?"

"I don't know. I wish I did," Kurt snapped. "And I'm surprised, actually. I thought my room would've been swamped by detectives and police officers by now, asking what happened and who did it and everything from what I was wearing to how dark it was outside."

Dave chuckled for a moment, then cut off. "How bad were you hurt?"

"Stab to the shoulder that needed stitches," he recited. Dave's eyes were trained on his face and he felt suddenly self-conscious. "What?"

"Your face…" He trailed off, biting his lower lip.

Kurt raised an eyebrow, then looked away. "Oh, that. I may have done that to myself."

His jaw dropped a little. "You did that to yourself?"

"I guess so," he said solemnly, holding up one hand to show his shortened finger nails; he'd woken up earlier to find them clipped to stubs.

Dave sniffed, shifted in his seat. "Why'd you do that?"

"I didn't consciously do it," Kurt said defensively, and he ground his teeth. "I just… I don't know. I don't know what happened. All I know is that I was in the cafeteria, and the next moment, I woke up here with my nurse trying to cover my face in Aloe Vera."

"Okay, okay. Just asking," Dave said softly. He glanced around the room, fixing his gaze on the windows that looked over the parking lot, then the flowers the Warblers had brought in the day before. "Listen, I want to ask you something."

Kurt moved the flowers from his lap to sitting beside him and he curled his knees to his chest, resting his chin on his knees. "Go ahead."

"I want to know if I can come Friday," he asked quickly. His eyes darted up to meet Kurt's. "To Blaine's funeral."

The backs of his eyes prickled at the mention of Blaine's name, and Kurt blinked back tears. "Of course. Yeah, that's fine. I know Blaine would've wanted you there. I mean, he was all for helping you when you were having trouble coming out and everything, and I think he would've been happy to see that you're better." He tried for a smile.

"Thanks, Kurt," Dave sighed, folding his hands in his lap. He licked his lips. "I should, um, probably get going. My dad's waiting for me."

"Did he drive you here?" Kurt asked and furrowed his brows.

The burly boy nodded as he stood up and returned the chair to where it was originally, against the wall beside the door. "Yeah. All my doctors agree that I shouldn't drive until the summer. To, you know, make sure that I won't drive myself off a cliff," he said, and he laughed weakly, almost like it was a joke.

"Oh. Okay, then. That's good." Kurt bit his tongue, hard. "Thank you for coming to see me, David."

A smile appeared on his face as he neared the door, pushing it open. "Anytime."

With that, he disappeared into the hallway and shut the door behind him.

After the sound of his footsteps vanished, Kurt buried his face in the blankets and sobbed. The tears were hot down his cheeks, and it was rubbing salt in an open wound. The angry lines burned, and he was sure his entire face was red.

The sobs shook his shoulders and his breathing became shallow, wheezy, until a stabbing arose in his lungs. Pulling his face from the mass of blankets that covered his bed, he wiped his face with the back of his sweater sleeve, which intensified the burning.

The searing pain continued until Miranda came to get him for dinner.

* * *

Blaine stayed in Kurt's room long after Miranda had taken him to dinner. He simply sat on the tile floor, staring at each individual tile, and swallowed. Victoria had not said a word since Dave's visit.

"Can ghosts cry?" Blaine asked faintly.

Victoria was stricken by the question, and she scratched the back of her head unsurely. She had no answer.

Blaine rested his chin in his hand and listened as the air conditioner clicked on, thrumming in the ventilation system in the ceiling. There were no tears that rolled down his cheeks, or sobs that wracked his shoulders. Nothing.

Instead, he was hollow.

If he held his breath, would he turn blue from lack of oxygen?

If he jumped out an open window, would he face plant against the ground?

What was the point of anything anymore if there was nothing to feel?

He remained on the floor of Kurt's hospital room until the darkness crept up on him, looming over him as a shadow would.


	6. Chapter 6

Hello, readers.

I hope this update finds you all well. I apologize for not updating this story as often as I do WaODM. I just had my wisdom teeth taken out Friday and I was in pain for days, but now I'm doing a little better. Hopefully I'll be back to normal by tomorrow or the next day.

And Tuesday, I officially became a car owner. My dad finally got me a car so now I can drive places! I feel a little more grown-up now. I guess.

So that's about it. I hope you all enjoy this update of Let Me Haunt, and reviews would be extremely nice.

* * *

**Chapter 6**

* * *

By Thursday afternoon, Kurt was grateful to leave the stench of chemicals and bleach. His papers were filled out and filed, and everything was in order. As the doctor who had nursed Kurt's injuries wrote off a script for medication to give to Burt, Kurt was frozen in the center of the room.

Somehow, it was almost like leaving a hotel. He had to make sure he had everything he brought with him and to not leave anything behind. That part wasn't very difficult, seeing as he only brought himself. Earlier he had tried to make the bed, folding the stiff sheets and tucking them into the corners. Miranda had stopped him, laughing.

"You don't need to do that, honey," she had said and gently pulled the sheets from Kurt's hands. "We're only going to wash them for the next patient, so there's no need."

Then she swiftly yanked the layers of sheets off the bed in the flick of a wrist and crumpled them in her arms. He winced.

Now, Kurt had his arms wrapped around the stuffed bear Brittany had brought him. He had had to remind himself several times to keep his hands close to his sides or in the pockets of his jeans to prevent scratching at his face. The swelling in the scrapes had gone down significantly since the day before, but they still marred his face, and he'd had to borrow cover-up from Carole to hide it until he was out of public.

Carole stood next to her husband, intently listening to the doctor's quick words, seeing as Burt was struggling to keep up. She clasped the flowers that Dave and the Warblers had brought in, the two colors clashing, orange and purple. They were wilting slightly, though the colors were still bold.

Kurt clutched the stuffed bear and used it to keep his hands busy, chewing absently on his lip. Looking down at his hands, he found them white, not from the tension he was putting on them, but from the dramatic weight drop over the past days.

After breakfast, Miranda had put him on the scale to compare his arrival weight and his discharge weight; they drastically differed by almost fifteen pounds. His skin had turned a pasty white color, and his collar bones were beginning to stand out; his soft hair was now flat.

He glanced around the room, not knowing what to do with himself other than fiddle with the ribbon tied around the bear's neck.

"Kurt? Are you ready to go?" Carole asked. The cellophane around the flowers crunched, crunched, crunched as she moved.

Kurt nodded his head and joined her and Burt by the door, hugging the bear to his chest. His doctor extended a sheet of pink paper to Burt with a smile that was meant to be encouraging, but turned out flat.

"We hope you get better, Kurt," he said, voice somewhat warm for the frigid air of the hospital. "I've given your father a prescription for medication to take every six hours, with food. This script should last for about four weeks. Does that sound okay to you?"

He nodded again, but he deeply wished the man would not talk to him like a child, slowing his speech to where he sounded idiotic and nodding his head like a bobble head doll. Kurt smiled a little and nodded again.

Burt tenderly clapped Kurt on his good shoulder. "I guess we're all set to go. You got everything?"

Kurt raised the bear. "Teddy bear and all."

"Then let's get going," Carole said cheerily, shifting the flowers to her other arm so that she could pull Kurt close for a hug; she smelled like Dove soap and flower petals.

Kurt followed Carole and his dad out of the room. He held the bear close to his chest and rubbed his fingertips against the velvet bow.

"It was nice being your nurse, Kurt," Miranda called with her head stuck out the door. Her dark hair tumbled over one shoulder and her smile was blinding.

Lifting a hand, he waved delicately to her. He caught up with his parents, who were farther down the corridor, then stopped and turned back. He headed back into his room.

"Miranda," he said, a little winded.

The nurse looked over her shoulder at him curiously and stopped removing the cases from the pillows. "Yes?"

"Before I leave," he said and he clutched the doorframe to keep steady on his feet, "can I say goodbye to Ethan?"

Smiling that blinding smile again, she brushed past him and padded across the hall to the redhead's room. She knocked with extreme care before entering and calling, "You've got a visitor, Ethan."

"Oh, is it Megan Fox, finally here to see me after receiving all my fan mail?" he called back with a thick air of sarcasm.

Miranda chuckled and opened the door wider for Kurt. "It was nice to meet you. It'd be nice to see you again, but hopefully not because you're sick," she said to him. She patted his good shoulder and left.

Kurt peeked inside. Ethan was sitting in his bed, a mound of pillows propped behind him. A music player was in his lap, one of the earbuds stuck in his ears and the music loud enough to catch the tune. He appeared to be staring at something on the other side of the room, though, with a pang in his stomach, Kurt knew he wasn't.

"Not quite Megan Fox," Kurt said with slight humor, "but I've been told frequently that I'm a looker."

Ethan turned his head and grinned. "Hey, Kurt. How's it going?"

"Leaving," he answered shortly and wandered into the room. "My parents have got all the papers signed. I'm as good as gold."

"Ah, that's right. Today's the day, isn't it?" the redhead sighed. He pulled the single earbud from his ear and pushed hair from his face. "Well, I hope you survive out in the real world. I've heard it's pretty fucked up."

Miranda's voice rang out as she shouted from across the hall, "Language!"

Ethan winced. "Ouch. She's got hearing like a bat. I swear, I can't get away with anything without her getting onto me," he mumbled. He crossed his arms over his chest.

"What are you listening to?" Kurt asked. He sat down in a chair beside the bed and arranged the bear in his lap.

From the corner of his eye, he saw his dad and Carole pop their heads into the room, and he held up one finger, asking for a minute more. Burt's eyes darted to Ethan, who was in the middle of talking about some alternative band, and he pulled Carole away from the door.

"…and they're pretty good, in my opinion. I think they've got three albums out now," Ethan said, clearly satisfied.

"They sound good," Kurt said distantly. He wondered what the first part of the other boy's sentence had been.

Ethan grinned. "Yeah, I like to think so. Thank goodness I still have my hearing, though, right? I'm glad my disease only got my eyes. I'd much rather have lost my sight than my hearing."

Kurt nodded and ducked his head to his chest.

"Well, wish fucking _granted_," he said, almost to himself. He turned his head, curious. "Kurt? Are you there?"

"Oh. Yeah, I'm here." Kurt sat up straighter and crossed his ankles. "Sorry. Just… tired."

He waved a hand at him. "Go home. After all you've been through, you need to get some rest," he said. "Just one thing, before you go."

Kurt stood up slowly and tried to push away the woozy feeling in his head. "Yes?"

"Come back and visit me sometime," Ethan said. "If I'm not here for some reason, just ask Miranda. She'll probably know."

"You say that like something's going to happen to you," Kurt said with his eyes narrowed. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

Ethan shook his head simply. "Nope. I mean, like, if I've already been discharged. That's it."

"If I come back here and they tell me you're dead…" Kurt's voice dropped a volume level. He took a step closer to the door. "Forget I said that. Get better soon, Ethan. I'll try to visit you when I can."

"Cool with me." The redhead grinned brightly.

Kurt stepped into the hall and eased the door shut behind him. When he wrapped his arms around the stuffed bear, he found his hands shaking terribly.

Carole and Burt were waiting for him by the elevators at the end of the hallway. They signed him out in the front office and charted him into the parking lot. Instantly Kurt covered his eyes to block out the bright rays of the sun; he hadn't been outside in nearly a week.

He followed his parents to Burt's truck and slid into the backseat silently. As they puttered out of the lot, he stretched out along the seats and used the bear as a pillow, the fur soft against his skin.

For the next twenty minutes, he faded in and out of sleep. He would be right on the verge of it when a burst of sun reflected and shined over his eyes, forcing him awake. He was half asleep when they dropped off his prescription at the drug store, and he was sitting up when they pulled up to their house.

The first thing he noticed was the Lexus sitting in front of the house, shiny and looking fairly new.

"Who's here?" he asked while they pulled into the driveway. His mouth felt incredibly numb.

Both Burt and Carole did not reply. They shared a glance in the front seat and parked in the garage, bringing the door down behind them.

"Who's car is that?" Kurt rephrased when he got nothing. He eased himself out of the car and steadied himself. With the bear safely tucked in his arms, he followed his parents into the house.

The smells of freshly baked bread and sweet fruit hit him head on and he stopped in the doorway. The kitchen was stacked with glass pans of foods, varying from casseroles to meat dishes to pastries. A small stack of dishes sat beside the sink and were waiting to be washed.

A young girl with long, tan legs and hair cascaded fully down her back was scooping a spoonful of some kind of casserole into a bowl at the island. She glanced up when Burt and Carole passed her.

"Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Hummel," she said quietly, stretching the Saran wrap over the glass pan. "I hope you don't mind if I have some of this."

Carole put forth a sweet smile. "Go ahead, dear. If you want, there's some fruit in the fridge to go with it."

"Thanks." The girl smiled and moved the pan to the fridge, where she removed a gargantuan bowl of diced pineapple.

Kurt was frozen in the doorway, staring at this girl who was feeding herself in his kitchen. His parents barely even acknowledged her, except when Carole smiled at her.

"Hi, Kurt." The girl waved her fork at him and chewed slowly on a chunk of pineapple.

Cautiously Kurt made his way into the kitchen. He held the bear close to him, eyes narrowed to slits. "Hello."

She set down her fork and extended a hand to him. "I know you're probably wondering why there's some random girl in your kitchen, eating all your food," she said with colorless humor. "We've never met before. I'm Sadie, Blaine's sister."

Kurt swallowed, hard. The girl, Sadie, was almost a spitting image of her brother, with smooth, cocoa skin and glittering brown eyes. Her hair was thick and dark, and curled a little at the ends. She was thin, and wearing a pair of loose shorts and a long t-shirt.

She painfully reminded him of Blaine and his eyes started to well, but he blinked back the wetness.

He took her hand and gave it a small squeeze. His stomach felt as though it was carrying a lead weight. "Oh. It's nice to finally meet you."

"Yeah, it is," Sadie said and spooned another chunk of pineapple into her mouth. She rested her elbows against the granite countertop and she was silent as she chewed. "You know, you're really cute. Blaine had good taste, didn't he?"

"He did," Kurt said distantly. He licked his lips and croaked out, "Dad?"

Burt's heavy footsteps pounded against the floor and he appeared in the kitchen doorway. "What's wrong?"

He shook his head. "Nothing's wrong. I… Why is there so much food?"

Sadie chuckled, but it was frail.

Burt dropped his shoulders in relief. "Oh, um, the neighbors brought it over. And Charlene brought some with her when she and Sadie came, too," he said.

The name 'Charlene' rang a bell in the back of Kurt's mind. He leaned against the counter, avoiding leaning against a pan of brownies. He chewed on the inside of his cheek in thought, then peered up at Sadie.

"Your mom's here?" he questioned.

She nodded slightly. "We've been here since Sunday, and your mom gave me and her the guest room. She's probably still asleep right now."

"It's three in the afternoon," Kurt pointed out after checking the clock on the wall.

"She hasn't had much sleep the past week," Sadie murmured and chased the fruit around in the bowl. "And frankly, neither have I, or your parents, or your friends from school."

Kurt stared at her. "What friends?"

"Choir," she said around a mouthful. "They've been coming here every day after class lets out when they're not visiting you to either sing to us or bring us organic food that the one girl's dads made."

"Rachel. She's very healthy," he sighed. He paused. "Not to be rude or anything, but why are you and your mom here? Wouldn't you be more comfortable in your own house?"

Sadie nibbled on a bite of the casserole. "My mom doesn't like being alone. No one does, really. Your parents offered us the guest room here until we get this… figured out, I guess." She chewed and swallowed, a crestfallen look covering her face.

A shudder ran up Kurt's spine and he looked away from Blaine's sister. From his spot in the kitchen, the living room looked messy, with magazines lying in heaps on the table, surrounded by dots of tissues. The television was on a news channel, the volume turned down all the way. A blanket was draped over the back of the couch and some of the pillows were on the floor.

Charlene and Sadie were living with them for the time being. It wasn't unexpected, seeing as Carole would house just about anyone in a time of need. And, like Sadie said, no one liked being alone.

"Hello, honey," crooned a soft voice from the doorway. A short woman with a dark bob and sleepy eyes wandered into the kitchen and laid her hand over Sadie's shoulder.

Sadie leaned into the woman's touch a little. "Hey, Mom. I see you're awake."

"I know," was all the woman said. She found Kurt standing on the other side of the island and wasted no time in crossing the kitchen to pull him into her arms.

Kurt inhaled the scents of lavender and vanilla and spearmint gum, all too familiar smells. They made his eyes water threateningly. A sharp stab arose in his shoulder and he winced, pulling back.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the woman said and dropped her arms. She lifted one hand and it ghosted over Kurt's cheek. "My, what happened to your face, Kurt?"

"Mom," Sadie said firmly and set down her fork. "He's still a little dazed. He just got back from the hospital, like, a few minutes ago."

The woman, her name Charlene, stepped back with an apologetic look over her face. "I'm sorry."

Kurt shook his head, his throat closing up nervously. His hands shook and he hugged the bear closer to him.

"Can I make you anything, Charlene? We've got tea and coffee." Carole's voice rang out and she stood in the doorway. Her eyes lit up when she saw the three of them in the kitchen.

"Just tea is fine." Charlene folded her hands in front of her; Kurt couldn't help but notice that her hands were shaking, too.

Carole moved about the kitchen quickly and pulled a box of tea from the cupboard. She was the only one moving, pouring water into a glass that went into the microwave and shuffling things around on the counter.

"Kurt," she said as the microwave went off, "this is Charlene, Sadie and Blaine's mother." Her voice hiccupped when she said Blaine's name.

He flattened his lips and nodded in reply.

The smell of the tea as Carole placed a bag in the boiling water made his mouth water and it reminded him that he hadn't eaten anything besides the toast in the hospital's cafeteria. He clutched his stomach as it growled.

"I can fix you something, honey," Carole said as she put the tea box away. "Lord knows we have enough food."

Kurt wrinkled his nose. "Can I just have some crackers? I want to go lay down."

"Of course," she said, and dropped it.

He went past her to the pantry and rummaged through it for the box of Saltines that was always kept in the back in case someone got sick. He tucked the box under his arm and left the kitchen without another word, heading up the stairs and down the hall.

As he walked to his room, he slowed outside Finn's, ears straining for the animated sounds of his video games. When he heard nothing, he was half tempted to push into his stepbrother's room. But it was only three-thirty, and school was just letting out; Finn wouldn't be home for another half hour, at best.

Kurt pushed open the door to his room. Surprisingly, it was unchanged, nothing moved from the last time he had seen it Friday night.

The pair of red jeans that he had been debating on wearing that night were folded at the foot of his bed, the shirt he was going to wear with it. The covers on his bed were straightened, the pillows fluffed the way he preferred. His desk in the corner of the room was still flooded with homework papers that he had intended to work on for this week.

Seeing them, Kurt swallowed uncomfortably and reached into the box for a cracker.

He set down the bear on the bed and kicked off his shoes, setting them by the door. The bathroom door was open a crack and he pushed inside. When he glanced in the mirror, he took a step back.

Although it was better, the angry lines that crisscrossed across his face were still swollen, still pink and numerous and aching. Two raked across his forehead, and three diagonally down his left cheek, and two straight across his right. The sides of his neck bore scrapes as well and they protested when he turned his head to examine them.

Purple smudges painted themselves under his eyes, which were dull and flat and gray. His porcelain skin was now pasty and oily, his hair falling flatly against his scalp.

But what took him aback the most was his frame. Before, he was comfortably thin, but now, he was able to pull the waistband of his skinny jeans away a good bit; it looked like he could fit into the next size down. Startled, he yanked his shirt to the side to see his collarbones prominent, the skin stretching tautly over them.

Kurt dropped his hands and fled from the bathroom. He reached for the box of crackers that sat on his bedside table and stuffed one in his mouth, though the last one had gone down not so easily. Chewing and struggling to swallow, he pulled back the covers on his bed and crawled in.

* * *

"Don't play with me, Victoria. Just open the door," Blaine grumbled. He stood with his arms crossed at the back door to Kurt's house, and every sight set him off—from the manicured lawns to the wrought iron fence to the elegant porch. It all struck him with a sense of familiarity, and reminded him that he was simply on the outside, looking in.

"What's the magic word?" the blonde sang. Her hair fell down her back in a shiny sheet as she twirled on her toes.

Blaine threw his hands over his head. "I have to go in, now! My—"

"Yes, yes. I know your boyfriend's up there and you _desperately _want to see him." She gave another delicate twirl, light as air on her feet.

"That, but my sister and my mom are in there," he said pointedly. He jabbed a finger at the glass back door, where he had a good view of the kitchen, which was laden with food.

His mom was leaning against the counter with a cup of something steaming in her hands, looking between Burt and Carole as they talked about something and started cleaning up the food dishes. Sadie stood off to the side and was nibbling on something from a glass bowl; she had never looked more exhausted, with her mane of hair in a tangle and wearing sleep shorts and a worn shirt.

With a sharp pang, Blaine realized that she was wearing one of _his _old shirts, his Dalton Academy Warblers shirt from a few years back.

Carole pulled out a box of plastic wrap from a drawer and tore off a piece to hand to her husband. She pulled one off for herself and started covering what looked like a chocolate pie.

"Ah, the pity food," Victoria sighed, joining him at the door. "I remember after I was shot, the entire neighborhood brought my family enough food to last for months. And I kind of wished I'd been alive so I could try the chocolate mousse that the Fitzgeralds brought over."

"Shot?" Blaine repeated. He looked at her, eyes in slits. "I thought you told me you were hit by a drunk driver?"

If Victoria's face could've gone red, it would have. She kept her eyes glued to the window, and she pursed her lips. "Is that so?" she murmured shyly.

"That is so," he said.

"Is that your sister? She's very pretty," she said suddenly and jerked her thumb at the door, indicating the brunette at the counter. "Does she play any sports? I hope she's a cheerleader."

Blaine sighed, dropping the subject. If it was important, he would pry later. "She used to play volleyball at this private school in Westerville, and now she's on the squad at McKinley."

Victoria snapped her fingers in mock disappointment. "Oh well."

"So are you going to open the door for me, or what?" he asked shortly.

"I love how you don't want to walk through it," she said, delighted.

Blaine felt that if the blood could rush to his cheeks, it would. "I just don't like the feeling of passing through it. It feels too weird. Now open the door."

"Um, no. I mean, everyone and their brother is in the kitchen," she pointed out. "If I just opened the door, they would all freak out."

Blaine lifted a shoulder. "Then we'll say the wind blew it open."

Victoria licked a finger and held it high in the air. It shimmered slightly, then turned a flesh color. She squinted her eyes for a moment before dropping her hand. "Nope. No wind."

"I hate how you possess the need to point everything out," he said irritably. "So are we just supposed to sit here and wait until they all leave?"

"Yup. Unless you know another way in that doesn't involve opening doors and raising suspicion amongst the people." She glanced at him slyly. "And unless you want to go through it. But wait, it feels too weird." She faked desperation and rested the back of her hand against her forehead.

Blaine leaned his head back and let out a sigh. He had the urge to plop down on the deck, but refrained, knowing he would fall right through.

"Fine," he said finally and ran a hand through his hair. "I'll walk through the door, if that will make you happy."

Victoria grinned her toothpaste commercial smile. "Yes, it would make me happy. You're finally accepting that you are, indeed, a ghost and can walk through walls. Good progress, young grasshopper."

Blaine rolled his eyes. He took a deep breath, which humored Victoria, and stepped through the back door. His body erupted in the same tingling sensation that made him flinch. Before he knew it, he was standing in the dining room, staring over the table and into the kitchen.

"See? That wasn't very hard, was it?" Victoria asked, appearing at his side. "Now we just need you to be able to materialize your hands and you're all good to go."

He shuddered. "I hate that feeling. It's awful."

"It's better than waiting for someone to come around and open a door for you," she remarked. She waltzed into the kitchen and propped her hands on her hips, staring at all the food. "Gosh, I wish I was still alive. That apple pie looks amazing."

"If you were alive," Blaine said as he paced into the kitchen, stepping past Kurt's dad, "then you would be twenty-two and in college."

She whipped around to stare at him. "Touché."

Blaine stepped away from the fridge as Carole pulled it open to put in another dish covered in Saran wrap. His mom had finished her tea and was now playing with the tea bag, listening to what Carole and Burt were talking about.

"Is Kurt upstairs?" Carole asked, stretching more plastic wrap over a pie.

Burt grunted in reply. "He's been up there for half an hour now. Hasn't come down yet."

"He's probably asleep," she murmured. "I hope he'll be awake by the time the detectives get here."

Charlene raised an eyebrow. "There are detectives coming?"

Burt nodded. "They wanted to come when Kurt was still in the hospital, but we told them it would be better to wait until today."

Instead of saying anything more, Charlene played with the tea bag in her cup, twisting the string around her finger until it cut off circulation. She glanced to her daughter, who was helping herself to a slice of pumpkin pie that someone had brought.

"Sadie," she scolded, "don't eat so much. You've already had a lot this morning as it is, and I don't want you getting sick."

Sadie lifted a shoulder and spooned pie into her mouth. "I have a strong stomach. I think I'll survive."

Her eyes sharpened.

"Mom, just let me have one more piece," she begged. "I just want to eat and then go sleep."

"They're to going to interview you, too. I don't want you feeling bad when they come," Charlene called as Sadie walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs. She sighed and placed the cup by the sink, throwing away the tea bag.

The door to the garage slammed suddenly and everyone, including Blaine, jumped.

Finn lingered awkwardly in the doorway, his backpack slung over one shoulder and his car keys dangling from one hand. "Hey, guys."

"Hi, sweetie," Carole said and pulled him close to give him a hug. "How was school today?"

"Fine," Finn answered dryly. His eyes skirted across the room to Charlene. "They made another announcement about Blaine today, over the speakers."

Charlene immediately blanched. "Another one?"

He nodded lamely. "Today was just about the funeral. Which is tomorrow. Yeah." He looked over at Carole and Burt. "I've got homework, so I'll see you later." Ducking his head, he left the kitchen and his footsteps sounded up the stairs.

"Say hi to your brother, Finn. He just got home today," Burt called, eyes fixed on a point on the kitchen wall. There was a muffled reply from upstairs, and then all was silent, save the hum of the fridge.

"I'm sorry, Charlene," Carole whispered gravely.

The short woman covered her mouth, her eyes welling with tears. She shook her head once.

Blaine could not take his eyes from his mom. The only time he had ever seen her cry was when she had had the divorce with his father almost three years ago. She had locked herself in her room for a few hours and cried, the sobs sounding through the walls.

He remembered asking why they were separating, and he hadn't known that it was because of _him _that his father decided to leave. It was because _he _was gay, and his father couldn't stand to live in a house where his own son had "the wrong opinion of love."

Carole pulled a wad of tissues from her purse and handed them to Charlene, who took them gratefully and dabbed at her eyes.

The doorbell rang just then, startling everyone, and Burt left to answer it. Thick, low voices were heard, and Burt ducked back into the kitchen.

"Carole," he said softly, "Detective Bertrand is here to speak to Kurt."

* * *

A soft knock on the door woke Kurt from a fitful sleep. Startled, he tumbled over the side of the bed, striking pain in his shoulder. He hit the floor with a wince and the door creaked open.

"Kurt, you okay?" Burt asked as he rushed to his son's side.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Kurt said, winded, sitting up. "I just fell off the bed. Nothing big."

Burt did not look convinced, but helped him stand. He gestured to the man standing in the doorway. "Kurt, this is Detective Bertrand, from the Lima Police Department. He'd like to speak with you for a while."

Kurt pursed his lips and tried to ignore the fire in his shoulder.

Detective Bertrand was a tall man with a flat layer of brown hair. He wore a long jacket that mostly covered his slacks and his button-down shirt. His hands were clasped in front of him, eyes blue and soft.

"Come get me if you need anything. I'll be in the kitchen," Burt said and patted Kurt on his good shoulder. He smiled vaguely at the detective before leaving.

"Hello, Kurt. I'm Detective Bertrand," the man said in soft voice. He looked like he would be a much louder man, but appearances were not everything. "If it's alright with you, I would like to talk to you about the previous weekend."

Kurt stared at him and his pulse suddenly picked up pace. He couldn't help but notice the man's strong jawline and tan skin, and it poked something in the back of his mind. The detective almost looked familiar, in a way.

Shaking his head, he decided it was impossible. He had never met this man before until now. How would he seem recognizable at all?

Bertrand cleared his throat quietly and snapped Kurt out of his reverie.

"O-of course," Kurt said shakily. "Why don't we go downstairs?"

Without waiting for a reply, Kurt brushed past him into the hallway. The heavy footsteps of the detective followed him and he imagined a giant trotting behind him.

Kurt led him down the stairs and past the kitchen, where Carole and Burt were talking about something with their heads low. Charlene was not in sight; she must've gone back upstairs.

When Kurt pulled out a chair at the dining table, the legs scraped noisily against the floor. He sat down and folded his hands on the table, staring at them. He found the man's eyes on him, tracing over the angry red lines on his face.

"So, Kurt," Bertrand said warmly, "I trust you're feeling better?"

Kurt nodded once. "I just got home from the hospital today."

"That's good to hear." He pulled a small pad from a pocket in his jacket, like in all those detective movies. "I heard that you suffered a blow to the shoulder and a few cuts and bruises."

"I was stabbed in the shoulder," Kurt said. He heard his parents' conversation drop immediately to listen for his replies. "And I was cut a few times."

Bertrand hummed and scribbled a few things down, shorthand. "And the cuts on your face?"

Kurt swallowed, hard. "Self-induced during my stay at the hospital."

"I see." He paused before writing. "Now, I'm going to read what I have already, and I want you to tell me if it's true or not true, okay?" He waited until Kurt nodded. "From what I have, you and a friend of yours, Blaine Anderson, went to the cinema in the Lima shops on Bellevue on Friday evening, around seven. Is everything correct so far?"

"Yes, sir," Kurt said and his voice came out a whisper.

Bertrand flipped a page. "After the end of the film you saw, you and Mr. Anderson were walking outside the theater when a group of boys started to yell at you." His blue eyes slid up from the paper to meet Kurt's. "What did they yell, Kurt?"

Kurt sat back in the chair and let out a long sigh. "They called us homos and fags."

He kept his hands still, brows knitting together. "Homos?"

"As in, homosexuals," Kurt clarified. His throat was beginning to close, and he cleared it. "Blaine and I were romantically involved."

Then, Bertrand scribbled, the tip of his pen scratching the paper. "Did they say anything else to you that was vulgar or unpleasant?"

"They simply taunted us. It was all jeers and not very appropriate things." He picked at a cuticle on his thumb nail.

"The witnesses who were on the scene at the time reported that the boys started to chase you and Blaine. They saw you run down an alleyway to escape them." He paused briefly, folding the corner of the paper with his thumb. He looked up at Kurt.

Kurt hated the way he said the word _witnesses. _He knew there wasn't any other word to replace it, but it sent shudders up his spine.

"That's true," Kurt said eventually.

"Blaine received a sprained ankle—"

"He tripped," he blurted before he could stop himself. His cheeks caught fire.

Bertrand nodded. "The autopsy shows that he also received a cut down the side of his face and a cut along the base of his throat, along with immense blood loss," he recited, reading from the paper.

"That's true." Kurt swallowed again. He took a deep breath to avoid the dizzy feeling that surrounded him.

"And you, as you said before, were stabbed in the shoulder with a knife," he said slowly. "Were there anymore physical blemishes that you received?"

Kurt could sense his parents listening closely from the kitchen. "No."

Bertrand cleared his throat again. "At approximately nine fifty-three that evening, a call was placed to the police department about a beating. The police arrived on the site, but the boys who had assaulted you had left," he said. "I assume you would not like me to recall the rest."

"That would be nice." Kurt twisted his fingers together tightly.

"The boys who attacked you," he said and twirled his pen between his fingers, "can you describe any of them to me? It doesn't have to be specific things, just anything is fine."

Now, he was extremely aware of his parents in the kitchen, silent as dormice.

"There were five of them," Kurt said in a long breath. He waited for the detective to write it down before continuing on. "One of them was blonde, with a baseball cap on his head, and he was wearing a blue letterman jacket, I think."

Bertrand's hand hesitated in writing, but went on. "Okay, that's good. Can you remember anything else about the others?"

Kurt chewed on the inside of his cheek until he tasted the metallic tang of blood; he pressed his tongue to his cheek. "Well, they were all drunk. Very drunk, actually. And one of them had a knife that he used to s-stab me."

"Anything else?"

He wanted to smack the detective upside the head. If there was 'anything else', he would've said something about it. He held his hands on the table.

"They all looked like they were in high school, and two of the others were wearing the same blue letterman jacket as the first one," he said. "I can't remember which school they went to."

As he spoke, the memory colored his eyes. Dark sky, the heavy smell of metal in the air, the light from the street lamps bathing the back parking lot in gold. Waves of tennis shoes slapping against concrete, struggled panting, his pulse in his ears.

Blaine's cries echoing, his own cries molding with them.

Kurt clutched his hands together and squeezed his eyes shut tightly.

"I think we're done for now, Kurt. Thank you," Bertrand said gravely. He pushed away from the table and said something to Carole and Burt. Carole thanked him and showed him to the front door.

Burt sat down in the chair where the detective had been moments earlier. He placed a gentle hand on Kurt's good shoulder.

"You okay, bud?" he asked, sounding on the verge of tears himself.

Kurt shook his head blindly and allowed himself to lean against his father. The tears burned as they raced down his cheeks and his lungs felt as though they were going to burst.

* * *

Blaine stood in the kitchen, his knees weak beneath him.

As he had watched the detective interrogate Kurt, he felt a pain strike his chest. Everything had a date and a time and a place and an hour and a second, with people calling the police and people noticing them. It felt weird for everything to be so direct, so specific.

The only things he remembered were blurred, smudged around the edges. He hadn't known the exact time the movie had ended, or the address of the theater. He only remembered running until he tripped against the snag in the concrete.

"Hey." Victoria stepped beside him, looking dejected. "You feeling okay? You don't look so hot."

"What do you think?" Blaine asked shortly without looking at her. His eyes were only fixated on Kurt as he snuggled against Burt, tears running down his cheek like small waterfalls.

"You know, it does get better," she said somewhat kindly.

Blaine turned to face her. "Not when you don't know who killed you! I have no idea who it was, Victoria. At least, when you were killed, the murderer got some justice."

Victoria's upper lip quivered and she seemed at loss for words, emerald eyes vacant.

"The guy who hit you in that car was able to be taken in and probably thrown in prison, right?" he asked and didn't stop his voice from raising. "I don't even know why you're _here _right now! After all, you don't have anything left to deal with, right? Your murderer was thrown in prison and you have this hunky-dory life, and you shouldn't be here."

The blonde simply righted her shoulders and uncurled her hands from fists at her sides. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. "When you're calm enough that your spit doesn't fly when you talk, you know where to find me."

Then she vanished.

Blaine blinked and dropped his shoulders. She was gone.

He had a feeling his pulse would be pounding audibly in his ears right now, and he clutched his head. Feeling drained, he let out a weak yell that would have frightened everyone in the house.

The thing that made him glance up was the sound of Kurt's voice, soft and trembling.

"I'm fine, Dad," he said and got up from the table. "I'm going to sleep. Wake me if you need me."

Blaine dropped his hands to his sides. He watched as Kurt quickly headed up the spiraling staircase, and he followed. The stairs strung a pang of familiarity in him as he followed Kurt and he swallowed.

Kurt disappeared into his room and slammed the door hard enough to make the frame shudder.

Without hesitating, Blaine stepped through the door. He ignored the tingling sensation he despised and found himself on the other side of the door. Kurt's room was just as he remembered it, with the wooden bed frame and crème colored sheets. The drapes over the windows were drawn back to let in light, and the doors to his closet were wide open.

Kurt was curled on his bed, a pillow muffled his sobs, and he held something close to his chest. He pulled it away from him to glance at it, then tossed it aside on the bedspread.

Blaine leaned over to look at what it was, and he recoiled, almost stumbling back.

It was a picture frame, wooden and rectangular. Inside was a picture of he and Kurt in the choir room at Dalton, sometime during class. The quality of the picture said it was taken by Kurt's iPhone and was printed out from a computer, and then put in the frame. It showed he and Kurt with their backs to the director and both of them giving a thumbs up.

Kurt's cheeks were rosy and flushed in this, and Blaine spied a curl springing out awkwardly on his own head. Both boys' lips were spread apart in smiles, Blaine's teeth showing a little. In the background, Wes was making a funny face.

Blaine stepped back, away from the bed. He felt a sob hiccup in his chest and he let out a long sigh. Chewing on his lip, he clutched his head once more, feeling a pounding overcome him.

The last thing he saw before he faded was the light from Kurt's windows streaming across the floor, the gentle sounds of Kurt's cries accompanying it.

* * *

Sadie was the one to wake Kurt up when dinner rolled around. Carole had warmed up some kind of vegetable lasagna that the neighbors down the street had brought and she was spooning it onto plates when Kurt came downstairs.

"Here you go, sweetie," she said and handed him a plate.

Kurt didn't meet her eyes as he took his plate and filled a glass with water. He sat down at the table and waited until his parents, Finn, Sadie, and Charlene were seated before eating. It was odd to have two more around him.

He didn't have an appetite. How could he eat this food that was brought to him because someone died? It was almost like eating poison, knowing beforehand that it would kill you in the end.

"Not hungry?" Burt asked from the other end of the table. He himself had spent most of the dinner so far stirring his lasagna in circles on his plate.

Kurt shook his head. "Not really. May I be excused?"

"Kurt," Carole said warningly, "you know you have to at least eat something tonight. You can't take your medicine without food in your stomach."

Sighing, Kurt dug his fork into the food on his plate and spooned some into his mouth. One, two, three, four chews and he swallowed part of it. Five, six, seven, eight and he was able to talk.

"Now may I be excused?"

Carole and Burt shared a glance, but Carole nodded. She pushed away from the table and went into the kitchen. From the cabinet above the phone she removed a small orange medicine bottle and popped out two pills into her palm. She handed them to Kurt.

Kurt swallowed them, dry, and grabbed his plate off the table. He shoveled the half-eaten food into the garbage disposal and turned the machine on, watching as everyone at the table jolted ever so slightly.

"I'm going for a walk," he said absently as he left the kitchen.

"Do you want me to go with you?" Burt called after him.

Kurt pulled a jacket from the hall closet. "No, I'm fine."

"Finn can go with you," Carole offered, and Finn gave a surprised sound around a mouthful of food.

"I'll be okay," Kurt said and zipped it up. "I won't go far, I promise. I'll be back before seven."

Without waiting for a reply, Kurt ducked out the front door and shut it behind him. The cool spring air that washed over his burning face was soothing and he paced down the sidewalk, hands in his pockets.

He walked to the end of the sidewalk and turned down the street. He passed house after house, staring at the ground. The sun shined down on his back and cast his shadow across the pavement, making him seem taller and thinner than he was.

The corner came, and Kurt paused at the stop sign. Glancing across the street, he knew where he was going.

There was a small park that was a few minutes away from Kurt's house, and it sat by a pond that was usually filled with small fish, turtles, and water birds. Benches formed a loop around the perimeter of the park. At every time of day, it seemed, there were always children running around the park, swinging on the swing set and seeing how high they could go, or sliding down the slide and climbing back up.

It was where Kurt had taken Blaine so many times after Blaine had made the move to Lima. They'd go after school, around dinnertime, when it was nearly empty, and simply talk.

Kurt paced across the street and walked up the slight hill before the grass turned to crunchy gravel under his shoes.

He would have his phone out frequently, taking pictures of what he and Blaine were doing: hanging upside down from the monkey bars; swinging; falling down the slide; looking at one another from opposite ends of the long tube.

The first time Kurt had brought him to the park, Blaine had been a little wary.

"This is a park, Kurt," he'd said as they approached the jungle gym.

"Good observation. This is a park," Kurt replied. He brushed his hands off on his jeans before climbing up onto the raised platform that made him a few feet taller than Blaine. He looked down at the other boy. "Now I'm taller than you."

Blaine grinned and pulled himself up, almost face to face with him. "You're always taller than me, but not by much."

Kurt smiled. He pecked the boy on the cheek and ducked away, hurrying to the slide. He sat down at the mouth and stretched his legs out in front of him, almost as if he were a child again.

"And why are we at a park?" Blaine asked from behind, his voice in Kurt's ear.

"Because it's fun," Kurt remarked simply, and pushed himself down the slide, his legs too long and his body too large for such a small piece of equipment.

As Kurt got to his feet and brushed himself off, Blaine tumbled headfirst down the slide. He turned onto his back to look up at Kurt with a dreamy expression. "Hey."

"Nice entrance," Kurt commented and pulled on his hands to help him to his feet.

Now, Kurt passed the slide. It was made of bright yellow plastic, with several dark smudges where the bottoms of shoes had scraped against it. He clenched his teeth and moved on, the gravel loud under his feet.

Kurt had taken him to the swings, plopping down in one of them and gesturing the other one.

"Sit down," he said and started to swing slightly, his hands wrapped around the chains that held him up.

Blaine rolled his eyes, but complied. He sat down in the other swing and kicked off. His feet kicked up a little cloud of dust.

"I bet I can get higher than you," he said suddenly, and began to pump his legs.

"What are we, six years old?" Kurt retorted. He watched the other boy go higher and higher.

"You were the one who took me to a park in the first place," Blaine pointed out. As he passed Kurt, his voice sounded like the Doppler Effect, fading in and out.

Kurt rolled his eyes, but dug his feet into the ground and pushed off. "You're on."

They battled each other, trying to see who could get the highest without falling off or losing balance. Often they fell in sync, mostly at the top, and grinned wildly at each other. Both their heads spun, like they were going straight down on a roller coaster, the colors around them blurring.

Then Blaine jumped off when he swung forward. He soared through the air before missing his feet and landing, hard, on his side.

At first, Kurt didn't realize it until he saw the empty swing drop limply. He looked in front of him to see Blaine on the ground. Immediately he stopped moving his legs and let the momentum slow him down.

When he was close enough to the ground, Kurt tumbled off the swing. He tripped over his feet trying to run and ended up face down in the gravel beside Blaine. He felt Blaine's rumbling laughter more than he heard it.

"I think I win," Kurt said happily and lifted his face up from the mess of rocks. A fine layer of dust covered his face, and he felt it when he smiled.

"I think _I _win," Blaine argued. He sprung forward and pinned Kurt to the ground by his shoulders, leaning over him and grinning.

Kurt smiled. "And why is that?"

"Because I got you first." Blaine leaned down to kiss him.

Now, Kurt shook his head. He weakly took a seat in the swing that he always claimed, the one on the left, and he folded his hands in his lap. Since it was around dinnertime, the park was deserted. No laughing children, no talking moms. There were no ducks or water birds in the pond that made noises.

Just him.

Kurt leaned against the chain that held the swing up and pulled his phone from his pocket. He had gotten it when Sadie had woken him for dinner; Bertrand had gone out to his car and retrieved it to give it back to him, but Kurt had already gone up to his room.

He flipped the device on and watched the Apple logo appear on the screen. He had gone a week without his phone. Surely it would be bursting with text messages, voice mails, and missed calls. After a minute, his home screen showed up. He waited.

The number of text messages escalated from one, to five, to fifteen, until it reached over fifty. His calls were less numerous, about thirty, and the number of voicemails matched.

Kurt didn't know where to start. He stood up and walked across the park, opening up the messages first. When he reached the water's edge, he plopped down on the smooth grass. It was slightly damp, but he didn't care.

"Hey," Blaine had said and pulled Kurt down on the ground, "do you have any bread?"

Kurt stared at him oddly. "Not on me, no."

Blaine sighed, disappointed. "Darn. I was hoping we could feed the ducks." He gestured to the small pond that spread in front of them like a smooth sheet of murky blue satin.

Ducks bobbed on its surface, ducking heads under the water and coming back up. Turtles were lined up in a row along the bank, and a crane tiptoed through a maze of water plants in the deep end.

"When I bring you back here next time, we'll bring bread," Kurt promised.

"Sounds like a deal." Blaine pecked the other boy on the cheek and pulled him close.

Kurt pinched his lips as the screen filled up with messages from Mercedes, from Rachel, from Tina. There were numbers he didn't know, saying how sorry they were about what happened. There were a handful from Wes, David, and one from an unknown number that was signed with Sebastian's name.

He looked up briefly at the pond in front of him.

The water was still, almost a pane of glass.

Turning to his phone, he clicked out of the messages and opened up the calls. Most of the missed calls were from Burt and Carole and Rachel, and some from Wes and David. It was all the same people, all wondering the same thing.

Kurt didn't dare listen to any of his voicemails. He imagined them pleading and short and filled with awkward pauses.

He did, however, scroll through his contacts list with shaking hands until he found the number he knew by heart. He hit the name and waited for it to dial, holding it up to his ear.

The dial tone was deafening and he wanted to throw his phone into the water and leave. But before he could do it, a voice crackled on the other end.

"Hey, it's Blaine," the answering machine started, projecting Blaine's voice. "You've reaching my phone, and, um, I'm obviously not here. So leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks."

Kurt didn't leave a message. He ended the call before the beep could sound and he set the phone on the ground beside him, pulling his knees to his chest.

He didn't move from his place in front of the pond until the sun had sunken below the horizon. Burt came looking for him shortly after, a flashlight in hand.


End file.
